Oral Answers to Questions

Jonathan R Shaw: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that question. He is right: about 10 per cent. of installations were carried out by people who are still not registered with CORGI, and more needs to be done on that. As part of the arrangements for the new contract with Capita, that body will donate about £1.7 million to a charity. My noble Friend Lord McKenzie is asking other energy providers to put in resources, too. That fund will be used further to raise awareness. The more we do to raise awareness, the greater the reduction in the number of fatalities will be.

Jim Sheridan: Will my hon. Friend ensure that engineers who install heating systems are well aware of some of the toxic substances that surround heating systems, such as asbestos? Will he make sure that people get the proper equipment when working with that toxic substance, which causes disease, as there are long-term, cancerous effects from working with it?

James Purnell: On the first part of the hon. Gentleman's question, we totally understand that people will be worried about the economic circumstances, and our commitment is to do everything that we can to help people get back into work if they lose their job. That is why we have announced, for example, an extra £100 million—to do exactly that. We will do that to ensure that we never reach the unemployment levels that we had in the past of almost 3,000 people, not 651, in his constituency at the height of the previous recession.

Peter Hain: The fact that the numbers of people on jobseeker's allowances are rising is, nevertheless, a big contrast compared with the 1980s and 1990s, when people were just abandoned in the terrible Tory years.  [I nterruption .] As we are entering a period of turbulence in the jobs markets and rising unemployment, will my right hon. Friend specifically look at the question of people not receiving their benefit and support quickly, if not immediately, particularly in respect of mortgage relief and of those who are made redundant? People should receive their benefit right away and then be helped back into work instead of languishing for a period in no-person's land.

Lindsay Hoyle: Will my right hon. Friend look towards ensuring that there is a skill match for people who have lost their jobs and that if those people need to be trained, training is available immediately rather than their having to wait a long time before qualifying? That would begin to help the situation at Leyland Trucks, where jobs have tragically been lost. With a bit of skill matching and extra training, we can get those skilled people back into work. That is the kind of support that they need. Will my right hon. Friend look towards assisting them?

James Purnell: My hon. Friend is right to say that the additional part of the state pension is vital. That is why I am sure that he welcomes the changes that we have made to the state second pension; they will bring equality for women, recognise caring contributions and make the system an awful lot simpler. I am sure that he will also welcome the huge changes that will come through the implementation of the Turner commission's recommendations. That will mean that instead of only a minority of people benefiting from company pensions, as in the past, all employees will have the right to an occupational pension matched by the Government and their employer. That fundamental change will increase people's benefits and bring them equality in a way that was never achieved in the past.

James Purnell: We are gripping the problem. That is exactly why the pensions regulator gave the advice to which I referred earlier, which is that people have to continue to address their deficits but it must be affordable in the current economic circumstances. The last thing that anyone would want us to do would be to push out of business a company that has a perfectly viable future because of contributions being made at this very moment, but the pensions regulator has to be assured that those contributions will be made so that the deficit is addressed. On the hon. Gentleman's specific point about the figure, I will write to him with the latest information.

James Purnell: As the hon. Gentleman knows very well, the trend in defined benefit schemes has been the same all around the world. Employers have been trying to get those risks off their balance sheets. Indeed, the Turner commission said that the previous system was a fool's paradise where people were making promises that they could not afford to pay for and where Governments of both colours, including the hon. Gentleman's, loaded regulation on to schemes through legislation. We are now addressing that. As he knows—I think that his party supports this—we have changed the rules on indexation, we are examining the section 75 provisions, and we are looking into overriding scheme rules where that is appropriate. However, we need to do that in a way that protects employees, because it would be wrong to unwind the promises made to people who decided to work for those companies on the basis of such promises.

Kitty Ussher: On the whole, the system is working well, but the new regulations make provisions, which, without knowing the specific details of the case, I would think that my hon. Friend's landlords could invoke. They provide that, if there is a genuine risk to the payment being passed to the landlord, direct payments can recommence. I therefore advise my hon. Friend to talk to his local authority to investigate that. However, across the board, a large increase in financial inclusion has occurred as a result of the proposals that we implemented.

Kitty Ussher: I am extremely happy to write to the hon. Gentleman and let him know exactly how many uncleared applications remain in the system. I can tell him, however, that this year we think that 40,000 more children will benefit; the number is already up 200,000 in the last three years, and the target is 790,000 children benefiting by the end of this financial year. We are also, of course, introducing a disregard for benefits claimants so that the whole operation of the child maintenance system will contribute directly to our child poverty targets—something that the hon. Gentleman's party did not even seek to influence when it introduced CSA in the first place.

James Purnell: It is right to have a managed system. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we are bringing in a system based on the Australian points system, which will ensure that we get the best out of migration and the very important contribution that migrants make to our country. It sounds like the tone of his party and that of the Conservative party are becoming surprisingly similar; perhaps he would like to go back and join the Conservatives again.

Desmond Swayne: Why has the Secretary of State chosen this particularly difficult time to hit the least financially sophisticated and our most vulnerable with his swingeing reduction in the time period over which pension credit can be backdated?

Tony McNulty: My hon. Friend has already raised this particular issue with the Department. We need to make it clear that the Department makes advice on benefits and a wide range of other entitlements easily accessible to everyone through a variety of channels, including information leaflets, telephone helplines, websites and intermediaries. The loudest message needs to be that anyone requiring help on any aspect of the DWP's work should go through those channels, not through premium line channels.

Tony McNulty: It is a perfectly valid exercise to constantly look at a rationalisation of the estates base of Jobcentre Plus. As I said earlier, we are reviewing the options for the current 25 offices and will make an announcement shortly, but I agree with my right hon. Friend that we should keep the matter—and both its positive and negative aspects, in relation to the individuals concerned—constantly under review.

Graham Stuart: Further to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) about the amount of savings brought about by cutting the time for which pensioners can claim their benefits, my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale) asked the Pensions Minister how much that amount was, and was told that the information was not held centrally. Can the Secretary of State now confirm that he has been supplied the answer to that question, and share it with the House?

David Taylor: According to the National Pensioners Convention, more than 60 per cent. of pensioner couples live below the Government's poverty line of £151 a week, while the pensioner population is predicted to rise by 60 per cent. over the next 25 years. Is this not just the right time to bring forward from 2012 the restoration of the index link between average earnings and the state pension, and to combine personal tax allowances for pensioner couples? Would that not be a low-cost way of tackling pensioner poverty, and will the Minister slip that suggestion into the back of the Chancellor's notes now?

James Purnell: My colleague answered the question as set out on the Order Paper. As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have been protecting people's accrued rights and it is this party that put in place the pensions regulator and the Pension Protection Fund, unlike his party, which provided no protection for people at all, despite the shadow Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), being warned during the passage of the Pensions Bill of 1995 to do exactly that. We have put in place that protection. We fixed the roof while the sun was shining, and that is why people can be confident about their occupational pensions going forward.

Alistair Darling: The Crown dependencies, such as the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands attract banking customers with lower taxes—without contributing to the UK Exchequer. But at times of stress, depositors need to know who will compensate them. The British taxpayer cannot be expected to be the guarantor of last resort, so I have asked for a review of those regulatory arrangements, which will report to me in the spring.
	Secondly, we must resolve the situation highlighted by the Icelandic bank, Landsbanki, where billions of pounds of British savers' money was deposited in a foreign bank, with branches in the UK, with insufficient safeguards for those depositors. They were not adequately covered by the compensation scheme of the Icelandic authorities, so we had to step in to guarantee UK savers' money. So we are taking the lead at the European Union to tackle these shortcomings in international compensation arrangements. We cannot allow that situation to continue, and we have asked the European Commission to come back with recommendations by the spring.
	A strong banking system is vital to the health of our economy. It needs to be fair and open, offering a range of services and lending demanded by consumers. Because of the Government's action over the past year, no retail depositors in British banks have lost out. Last month, we took action to improve confidence in the banking system and recapitalise the banks. By next month, banks will have accessed some £100 billion of funding under the credit guarantee scheme. Now that the scheme is up and running, and other countries are beginning to implement their own schemes, it is time to explore how it can further support lending to families and business. We shall continue to monitor the working of the scheme and improve it if necessary. I shall announce any changes shortly.
	But we also know that the process to allow UK banks to raise money in the markets, through rights issues, is too slow and complex. Today, the rights issues review group, which I set up, has reported. I shall pursue its recommendations in full, which will make the process for raising equity capital faster and simpler. All these steps are aimed at combating instability, restoring confidence and improving protection for depositors, while defending the taxpayers' interests.
	Our economy cannot insulate itself from this global financial turmoil, but the UK economy faces these challenges from a position of relative strength compared to the past. Even today, employment remains near record highs. The claimant count, while rising, is 2 million below the level of the 1990s. There are still today over half a million unfilled vacancies in the economy. Government debt last year was among the lowest in the major advanced economies. At the same time, we have been able to triple public investment in key services, transport and infrastructure. We did fix the many roofs that needed fixing—the roofs of schools and hospitals throughout the United Kingdom. While all other major economies suffered recessions, we saw the longest period of continuous growth in the history of this country. That has brought immense benefits, and tens of thousands of jobs across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
	The UK is the world's leading financial centre, but because of the size of our financial sector we are likely to be affected more directly by a global financial recession. New lending has shrunk, down by a third since March. With mortgages harder to get and more expensive, this has hit property markets with prices falling by 11 per cent. over the same period.
	Mirroring the big falls in the world stock markets, UK share prices are down by almost a third. These falls came as businesses and families were already having to meet rising energy and food bills, which squeezed incomes and led to lower spending on other goods and services. The combination of higher prices and tighter credit has inevitably put downward pressure on growth here in the UK and across the world. The volatility in prices was underlined last month when inflation fell from 5.2 per cent. to 4.5 per cent, the biggest monthly drop in 12 years. But while it is volatile, inflation is expected to continue to fall, and this has already made room for the Bank of England to cut interest rates by 2 percentage points since October, to a 50-year low of 3 per cent. For the millions of people on tracker mortgages, this cut in interest rates will be worth on average around £100 a month off their mortgage payments. But monetary policy—interest rates—on its own is not enough to stimulate the economy, as most people recognise. So we need action now to boost economic activity, together with the real help that I will announce today, to help us to emerge quicker and to emerge stronger from these difficult times and to face the future with confidence.
	I now turn to the detail of the economic forecast. These forecasts are made against a background of sharply deteriorating conditions across the world. The International Monetary Fund is forecasting a year-long fall in output next year across all advanced economies, the first time that this will happen since 1945. The UK is no exception. UK GDP contracted by 0.5 per cent. in the three months to September. Growth this year is forecast to be ¾ per cent., which reflects a further fall in output in the fourth quarter of this year. The IMF is forecasting that the United States, Germany, Japan, France and Italy—as well as the UK—will all contract next year as a result of weak consumer spending and business investment.
	I, too, am forecasting that output will continue to fall in the UK for the first two quarters of next year. But then, because of decisions taken in this pre-Budget report, I expect it to start to recover and GDP growth for 2009 is forecast to be between minus ¾ per cent. and minus 1¼ per cent.
	Inflation is forecast to come down sharply, reaching ½ per cent. by the end of next year. Lower commodity prices and lower interest rates, which boost incomes and help business profits, together with the fiscal reaction across the world, will also help. As an open and flexible economy, the UK is well positioned to benefit from this recovery. As a result, and as the world economy recovers from the credit crunch, the United Kingdom's economy will begin to grow again. I am forecasting growth of between 1½ and 2 per cent. in 2010. In the years after that, the economy will continue to recover. Trend output—or the productive potential of the economy—will initially fall, but in future years the economy will recover towards a rate of trend growth of around 2¾ per cent.
	Every country in the world is facing the impact of this crisis on its own economy, but there is a growing international consensus—although unfortunately not shared in the House—that we must act now to protect people and to help pull our economies out of recession, for there is a choice. One can choose to walk away, let the recession take its course, adopt a sink-or-swim attitude and let families go to the wall. That is no action plan. Or one could decide, as I have decided and as Governments of every shade around the world have decided, to support businesses and to support families by increasing borrowing, which will also reduce the impact and length of the recession.
	I will do whatever it takes to support people through these difficult times. That is why my pre-Budget report today represents a substantial fiscal loosening to help the economy now with a £20 billion fiscal stimulus between now and April 2010, around 1 per cent. of GDP.
	Before I describe the detail of how the Government will support people, let me turn to the fiscal framework that will help us to ensure fiscal sustainability. The Government introduced the code for fiscal stability in 1998, committing themselves to conducting fiscal policy in accordance with a clearly stated set of principles.
	Our objectives are and remain to support the economy, to ensure medium-term sustainability and to maintain public investment. It meant that we were able to more than triple public net investment from 0.6 per cent. of GDP in 1997 to over 2 per cent. now. At the same time, we cut the Government debt from 43 per cent. of GDP in 1997 to 36 per cent. in 2007. Today, I publish the Treasury's assessment of the last economic cycle, which is supported by the independent National Audit Office. It shows that the last cycle started in 1997 and finished in the second half of 2006, and this means that the Government met both their fiscal rules over the last cycle.
	The average current budget balance, over the cycle, was 0.1 per cent of GDP. But today, Britain—like every other country in the world—faces an extraordinary global crisis, which means significantly lower tax revenues, both now and in the medium term. In the current circumstances, to apply these rules in a rigid manner would be perverse and damaging. We would have to take money out of the economy, making a difficult situation worse. So it is right that, in this pre-Budget report, we do all we can to support the economy, but also to ensure fiscal sustainability in the medium term.
	Consistent with the code for fiscal stability, the Government are setting a temporary operating rule that requires us to set policies to improve the cyclically adjusted current budget each year, once the economy emerges from the downturn, so that it reaches balance and debt is falling as a proportion of GDP once the global shocks have worked their way through the economy in full.
	The fiscal projections that I set out in this pre-Budget report are consistent with returning to current balance and debt falling as a share of the economy by 2015-16. They imply, as the economy emerges from the downturn, an adjustment in the cyclically adjusted current balance of over 0.5 per cent. a year from 2010-11, which will set us on a path to deliver our objectives of supporting the economy, ensuring sustainability and maintaining public investment. In addition, to increase transparency even more, I have asked the NAO to audit the Treasury's analysis of the cyclical fiscal position.
	I now want to turn to the forecast for the public finances. Because of the economic situation, tax revenues are falling across the world. As company profits fall, so do the proceeds from corporation tax. Receipts from the financial sector alone are expected to reduce by 35 per cent. this year. Slower growth in wages means less income tax. Fewer people buying houses and falling prices mean less money from stamp duty, where tax take is down 40 per cent. Because of the scale of these global problems, it is inevitable that tax revenues will take some years to come back up. That all means that borrowing will be significantly higher than forecast.
	As a result of the combined effect of lower revenues, our commitment to maintain spending and extra support to the economy, borrowing will rise to £78 billion this year and £118 billion next, or 8 per cent. of GDP. But then, from 2010, as I take action to reduce borrowing when the economy begins to recover, borrowing will fall to £105 billion, then £87 billion, then £70 billion and then £54 billion. By 2015-16, we will again be borrowing only to invest.  [ Interruption. ]

Alistair Darling: This means that the projection for the underlying budget deficit, excluding investment, will be 2.8 per cent. of GDP this year and 4.4 per cent. next year. But consistent with my commitment to sustainability and as a result of my announcements today, the underlying budget deficit, excluding investment, then improves, as a share of GDP, to 3.4 per cent., then 2.3 per cent., then 1.6 per cent. and 1 per cent., projected to reach balance by 2015-16.
	The economic crisis and the action by Governments across the world inevitably mean sharp increases in national debt relative to GDP—we will be no exception—but because we started from a stronger position, our debt will remain below that of other major countries. UK net debt, as a share of GDP, will increase from 41 per cent. this year to 48 per cent. in 2009-10, then 53 per cent., before peaking at 57 per cent. in 2013-14.
	If we did nothing, we would have had a deeper and longer recession, which would cost the country more in the long term. So in these exceptional circumstances, allowing borrowing to rise is the right choice for the country, as the CBI, the Institute of Directors, the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the IMF and many other countries have all said in recent weeks.
	We will continue to invest in public services, just as we have done over the last 10 years. Investing in school or hospitals, or modernising infrastructure and transport links, is not just an effective way of stimulating the economy, safeguarding jobs and protecting incomes. It is also vital for the future strength and health of our country. We have seen in the past the long-term damage that cutting public investment has on the essential fabric of the country and the support that people need. Since 1997, we have doubled the NHS budget, cutting hospital waiting lists. Spending on education is 60 per cent. higher, improving schools and exam results. Transport spending is up by 70 per cent, with over 130 major road schemes, and record numbers now travelling by rail.
	Total Government spending on much-needed investment and public services has increased from £322 billion 10 years ago to £584 billion last year. Through the current spending review, we will continue to support and improve key public services, to meet the ambition of the people of this country. The challenge is to continue to deliver these improved services while ensuring that we continue to get value for money.
	Today I can tell the House that, since 2004, the Government have delivered £26½ billion of efficiency savings, exceeding the target set by Sir Peter Gershon by £5billion. Building on this, at last year's comprehensive spending review, we committed to improve value for money, targeting a total of £30 billion by 2010-11, without putting public services at risk. But as the original Gershon report said, there is a point at which front-line public services would be affected—and we will not pass that point. However, having carefully considered the extent and the limits of efficiency savings, today I can announce that the Government will now find an additional £5 billion of efficiencies in 2010-11 for a total saving of over £35 billion over three years.
	We know extra savings are achievable because independent reviewers have identified new efficiencies across public sector operations, coming through lowering the cost of back-office operations, better procurement, and examining property holdings and asset sales. By continuing to make efficiency savings, we can help to fund the action needed to help families and business, but we will also ensure that spending continues to rise from £584 billion last year to £682 billion by 2010-11. In the next spending review thereafter, we will continue to put money into public services and investment, to maintain the gains of the last decade, by increasing current spending by an average 1.2 per cent in real terms. As businesses and families across the country watch what they spend, it is only right that the Government work even harder to make savings.
	I now want to turn to a wide range of measures that I am taking to support the economy and the people of this country. They will help businesses, support home owners and boost people's incomes now. Bringing forward capital spending on major projects supports jobs and businesses, and I want to do more. It is right that, at this time, we reprioritise investment from within the existing three-year limits, so that more money is being spent now, when the economy is weaker.
	I can announce today that £3 billion of capital spending will be brought forward from 2010-11 to this year and next. That money will be used to increase capacity in the motorway network, improve and build new social housing, renew primary and secondary schools, and invest in energy efficiency measures. I have looked at these programmes in detail, and I know that they can be delivered on this revised time scale. It will put people to work; it will renovate infrastructure; and it will modernise schools and create more fuel-efficient homes. That is all vital for the future prosperity of the country, supporting jobs in key industries. It is only possible because I am prepared to take action now.
	This spending will help to put the money into the economy in the coming months, but to prevent the recession from deepening, we also need to take action to put money into the economy immediately. I have looked at a wide range of ways in which we might achieve this. I have decided that the best and fairest approach is a measure which will help everyone, including millions of households that pay no direct tax at all, and it is to deliver a much-needed extra injection of spending into the economy right now. I therefore propose to cut VAT from 17½ to 15 per cent. until the end of next year. This reduction will come into effect next Monday, 1 December. It will continue for 13 months before returning to the present level of 17½ per cent. at the beginning of 2010, by which time we expect the recovery to be under way. This temporary reduction is equivalent to the Government giving back some £12½ billion to consumers to boost the economy. We would like retailers to pass it on as soon as they can. It will make goods and services cheaper and, by encouraging spending, will help stimulate growth. Again, this is possible only because I have rejected advice to take no action.
	I am also taking additional measures to help people on modest, low and middle incomes. In May, I announced an increase, for this year alone, in the income tax personal allowance—a benefit of £120 a year for basic taxpayers. I have decided to make that temporary tax cut permanent, and I have also decided to increase it to £145 a year in April. That will benefit 22 million basic-rate taxpayers. My announcement in May helped 4.2 million households that were affected by the abolition of the 10p rate, and this announcement will help another half a million households—not just this year, but for good.
	Along with those immediate steps to help businesses and families now, I am also announcing measures to ensure sustainable public finances in the medium term. I have considered a number of options to raise revenue in future years, and I have chosen those that are fairest and affect those who have done best out of the growth of the past decade. By 2011, we expect the economy to be recovering strongly, profits to be rising and incomes to be growing at close to 4 per cent., as they have done over the past decade. Today's pre-Budget report shows that the tax burden, as a share of gross domestic product, will fall from 36.3 per cent. last year to 35 per cent. in 2011-12. Against that background, I propose from April 2011 to increase by ½ per cent. all rates of national insurance contributions for both employees and employers.
	To ensure that the increase does not fall on those on low or modest incomes, I have decided, at the same time, to raise the starting point for national insurance to align it with that for income tax, so that no one on under £20,000 will pay any more national insurance contributions as a result. Secondly, those with the highest incomes have seen their earnings almost double since 1996, so—again from April 2011—I intend, only on income over £150,000, to introduce a new rate of income tax of 45 per cent. This higher rate of tax will affect only the top 1 per cent. of incomes.
	I also intend to withdraw the long-standing anomaly of the income tax system under which the personal allowance is worth twice as much to higher-rate than to basic-rate taxpayers. Again, I will protect those on middle incomes; this will affect only those earning over £100,000—that is, the top 2 per cent. So from April 2010, those with incomes between £100,000 and £140,000 will see the value of their personal allowance reduced, so that they get the same benefit as basic-rate taxpayers. For people with incomes above £140,000, I will withdraw the full value of that personal allowance. I also intend to maintain the ceiling on tax relief given to people with pension funds of up to £1.8 million until and including 2015-16.
	The reduction in VAT lowers the amount of tax paid on tobacco, alcohol and petrol. In addition, of course, petrol prices have come down by about 7p a litre since last month alone, so I will offset the VAT reduction by increasing those duties to an amount that will keep the overall cost to consumers the same this year. Of course, if we see a stronger economy and increased tax revenues— [Interruption.]

Alistair Darling: If we see a stronger economy and increased tax revenues, we will review whether we need to take these tax raising measures, but I believe that it is right that, as we all benefit fairly from the exceptional measures we take today, we should all share fairly the burden of the future. Taken together, these steps will ensure that that there is extra money flowing into the economy now when it is needed most, but we can reduce borrowing as returns. And as a result of my decisions today to provide support now and to balance the books in the future, I will bring the current budget back into balance by 2015-16: fiscal support now and fiscal sustainability both now and in the future.
	Small and medium-sized firms are the engine of our economy. They make up the vast majority of businesses and employ around 60 per cent. of the private sector work force. They also face continuing difficulties with cash flow and credit. I know that many profitable businesses are concerned that those twin problems threaten their future, and I want to help them. So, my objectives today for businesses are threefold: first, to help equip them for the challenges of the future; secondly, to improve access to credit and ease cash flow; and thirdly, to reduce burdens on them at this difficult time. I will maintain a focus on the long-term competitiveness of the UK, to increase our attractiveness as a base for global businesses. To do so, I will introduce an exemption for foreign dividends in 2009 for large and medium businesses, and improve our rules for taxing controlled foreign companies. To build on that, I have also today published an analysis of the long-term global trends impacting on the UK economy, and the Government's response to them.
	Small businesses need help to reduce their costs, and I have two announcements to ensure that they receive this help. First, to help small firms meet their running costs, I can announce a temporary increase in the threshold for empty property relief. From 2009-10, all empty commercial properties with a rateable value below £15,000 will be exempt from business rates. This exemption covers an estimated 70 per cent. of all empty properties.
	Secondly, at this time of real difficulties for many small businesses, they need time to pay when meeting their tax bills, and I intend to meet that need. From today, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs will enable firms facing difficulties to spread their tax on a timetable that they can afford. This will cover not just VAT, as some have suggested, but all business taxes—VAT, corporation tax, income tax and national insurance; and not for six months, but for as long as they need. That is real help when businesses need it most. I will also allow several hundred businesses in ports to spread out their payment of backdated business rate bills.
	We must continue to address the difficulty that many small and medium-sized firms face in getting loans. As part of the recapitalisation scheme, we agreed that banks receiving Government funding would maintain the availability of lending to small and medium-sized enterprises at 2007 levels, and I welcome the commitment announced at the weekend by Royal Bank of Scotland, one of the recapitalised banks, not to increase pricing on SME overdraft prices for at least a year. That will give security and reassurance to up to 1 million small businesses, and it should become the benchmark for all UK banks. We are closely monitoring the commitments given by banks to treat business customers fairly and decently, and I will take whatever action is necessary to make sure that that happens.
	We are also acting directly to improve access to finance. First, we have agreed a £4 billion deal with the European Investment Bank to provide money to the banks to pass on to small and medium-sized enterprises, and I can report today that seven UK banks have already asked the EIB for that money, and £1 billion will be available to their customers by the end of this year.
	Next, I can also announce that the Government are able to offer credit through a temporary small business finance scheme, and that is worth another £1 billion to small businesses. It should allow small businesses to borrow sums from £1,000 to £1 million at more flexible terms than before, making lending more affordable and easily accessible. That will help SMEs experiencing short-term cash-flow problems to get the funding that they need. We are also going to support companies that export, through the Export Credits Guarantee Department. From January, it will offer a temporary facility to support the availability of short-term working capital for smaller exporters, and that will mean yet another £1 billion worth of support to help ease the financing constraint faced by firms trading in the current difficult circumstances. So that is real support, quickly, for all types of small business, and it is possible only because we have made a deliberate choice to support businesses through this crisis.
	I have two more measures to announce to help business save tax. First, I have decided to defer the increase in the small companies rate of corporation tax that firms pay on their profits. That will provide a boost to small companies, leaving their tax rate in 2009 unchanged. Secondly, I want to support viable small companies that are finding it harder to make a profit at the moment. We already have a system of tax repayments, which are available to help those businesses, previously profitable, but now making losses. Currently, companies are able to offset losses only against profits made in the last year, but it is important to offer more support to businesses at the moment. So I am today extending this repayment scheme so that losses of up to £50,000 can be offset against profits made for the last three years. An estimated 75,000 businesses will benefit from this change, by receiving tax repayments. And of these, 90 per cent. will have their full current losses wiped out.
	This is a comprehensive package of support, which business has been asking us to provide. A package to support businesses—£1 billion worth of tax cuts and £2 billion in loan guarantees, along with £4 billion of European money. That is a £7 billion package of measures—real help. It is funding that we can provide because we have decided to take action to support our economy through this recession.
	I believe that these steps will help businesses through their current difficulties and enable them to invest so that they can make the most of the opportunities that will arise when the global economy recovers. I am also determined that the present economic uncertainty does not push aside the importance of protecting the environment and our long-term needs for a greener and secure energy future. We are already on track to exceed our emissions reduction targets under the Kyoto protocol, and we are further ahead than all the other G7 countries. We have now increased our commitment for emissions reductions to be at least 80 per cent. by 2050, by far the most ambitious in the G7. Through the Climate Change Bill and the new five-year carbon budgets, the UK becomes the only country in the world where legislation sets a binding commitment to cut emissions. The Government will set out detailed proposals for meeting that new carbon budget, laid before Parliament in the summer of next year.
	Our climate change strategy is based on a range of policies—encouraging more fuel-efficient businesses and transport; better energy use at home; and targets for renewable energy generation. Central to that is the European Union emissions trading scheme. Last week, we conducted the first auction of carbon allowances in Europe which gives firms the incentive to cut overall emissions. As the Government have demanded, aviation will now be included in the emissions trading scheme from 2012. That is a major step towards achieving our environmental objective of reducing the impact of aviation on climate change. It has enabled me to look again at our proposals for reforming air passenger duty.
	Last year, there was cross-party support for a reform of air passenger duty and converting it to a tax per plane. Much as I am in favour of a bipartisan approach, it seems in this case not to have reached the right conclusion. I believe that this proposal could harm the aviation industry at a time when it is facing huge problems. So instead, I have decided to reform air passenger duty into a four-band tax system, ensuring that those who travel further and have a larger environmental impact meet the cost. I believe that this will be a better and effective way of reducing emissions from aviation.
	Improving insulation and energy efficiency will also help us reduce emissions, as well as cutting energy bills for families. In September, we announced a £6.8 billion home energy-saving programme. This is expected to lead to a 70 per cent. increase in installation rates for cavity wall and loft insulations this winter. The Warm Front scheme has already used its additional £50 million to help modest-income households get free energy efficiency measures. Today I can announce that I am providing an additional £100 million in new money and bringing forward another £50 million, to help up to 60,000 more households insulate their homes.
	The most pressing energy problem for many families is paying heating bills. We have already tripled cold weather payments for this year, up to £25 a week, for those on modest incomes. But I know that there is widespread concern that the fall in the price of wholesale energy has not been reflected quickly enough in reduced household bills. I can tell the House that Ofgem, the regulator, is to monitor price changes and publish quarterly reports detailing the link between wholesale and retail prices. Alongside that, if sufficient progress is not made in the next few months in closing gaps in pricing between payment methods, the Government will use statutory powers to end unjustifiable pricing differentials.
	Oil and gas from the North sea remain an important part of our energy supply. I am consulting closely with the industry over how, together, we can put in place the right incentives to increase production from marginal oil fields.
	The economic recovery must support our environmental objectives, and not come at their expense. Government policies will drive more than £50 billion of investment and activity in the low-carbon sector over the next three years. This year, we became the world leader in offshore wind energy capacity, but we must make even more of our transition to a low-carbon world. As part of our commitment to bring forward capital spending, the Government will invest £535 million more quickly on energy efficiency, rail transport, and environmental protection. That will mean more homes benefiting from better heating and insulation, better flood defences as well as 200 additional trains. That is one of the many steps we are taking to secure high-value green-collar jobs—a potential 1 million jobs in the low-carbon industries in the next 20 years.
	I have one further announcement in this context. Renewable energy, along with nuclear power, will play an increasing role in meeting our energy future. I can announce today that the Government will extend, therefore, the renewables obligation for an additional 10 years to 2037. By requiring energy companies to generate a share of energy from renewable sources, that obligation will underpin investor confidence and support the development of renewable energy. We are taking the right long-term decisions to protect the environment, to ensure low-carbon jobs, and to provide energy security.
	I also want to take steps to improve the supply of mortgages, to avoid repossessions, and to increase the number of new homes. Today, I can set out proposals to do that. The current problems in the housing market are a result of the credit crisis, which has drastically reduced the opportunities for people to get a mortgage loan. Last month, we took decisive action to recapitalise the banks so that they can maintain the availability of lending, including mortgages. Today, I welcome the publication of Sir James Crosby's report on finance in the mortgage markets. His principal recommendation is that the Government should support the mortgage market by providing, for a temporary period, guarantees for securities backed by new mortgages. I share Sir James's concerns about the availability of mortgage finance. To implement his recommendation, the Government would need to obtain state aid approval from the European Commission and resolve some of the technical and practical considerations. However, we will work up a detailed scheme based on his recommendations and seek state approval to proceed. I will also take into consideration the interaction between that proposal and the credit guarantee scheme, and I will report back by the time of the Budget.
	I am also setting up a new body, a lending panel, which will monitor lending both to businesses and households. It will bring together the Government, lenders, trade bodies, consumer groups, regulators and the Bank of England to monitor lending levels and practices by the banks. We intend to consider how else we can help to ensure that those in work but facing financial difficulties can remain in their homes. It is not just the availability of new mortgages that is a problem in the housing market—it is also fears about meeting the cost of existing loans.
	It is right in these cases that repossession should be the last resort, and I am pleased to say that this has been recognised by the lenders. The major lenders have agreed today that when someone is facing repayment difficulties with their home mortgage, they will wait at least three months after the borrower falls into arrears before initiating repossession proceedings. That will give many home owners time to work with lenders to find a solution. I also welcome the commitment from lenders to explore all possible options, including accepting a minimum payment or mortgage rescue products, before and after home owners get into difficulty. It is also important that families worried about their finances and mortgages can get expert and impartial advice, so I am announcing today £15 million of new funding for free debt advice, available to everyone, regardless of their circumstances, and available across the whole country.
	I intend to take two further steps to help home owners facing financial difficulties. First, in September we extended the support for the mortgage interest scheme, which covers mortgage interest payments for those who have lost their jobs. Today I can announce that we will increase the upper limit of that scheme for mortgages up to £200,000 from the present limit of £100,000. That will, I hope, ease worries for home owners who have lost their jobs as they look for new employment. I have also agreed that, for six months, the level of interest rates covered by the scheme will remain, despite the recent base rate fall, at just over 6 per cent.
	Secondly, I can also announce new mortgage support for people in work. In September, we set up a mortgage rescue scheme, which is helping vulnerable home owners who face difficulties to stay in their homes. Today, I am extending that scheme so it will also cover those at greater risk as a result of taking out second mortgages. Together, that provides help against repossession worth £200 million.
	First-time buyer demand, and long-term housing supply, are the two essential cornerstones of the housing market. In September, to boost the market as a whole, I agreed £700 million of Government spending for new social-rented homes and shared equity schemes, and we agreed that they should be brought forward to this year and the next.
	Today, as part of the acceleration of capital spending, we will bring forward an additional £775 million this year and next to invest in thousands of new and modernised social homes as well as regeneration projects. Overall, this is a package of support for housing worth £1.8 billion—support that can only be provided because I have decided that we must act to give people real help. It will help home owners of today to stay in their homes, and help the home owners of tomorrow to buy their first home.
	As the economy slows, it is crucial that the Government minimise the impact of that on employment. Unemployment has started to rise and people's worries have increased about losing jobs and the difficulty of finding another one. I am determined to do what I can to ease those concerns and to help those who are made redundant move quickly into a new job.
	The evidence shows that the longer people are out of work, the more difficult it becomes to re-enter the labour market. Since 1997, we have made good progress on offering people the individual support that they need to find a job. We have halved the time it takes to find new work. Even as unemployment has been rising over the last three months, 1.2 million people have found new jobs.
	I have three proposals to make. Those facing redundancy need greater support. As the success of the rapid response service of Jobcentre Plus has demonstrated, support in the workplace in the form of advice on job-search, careers and accessing existing vacancies can make a huge difference to employment prospects. We will now further expand that service so that its work includes all redundancies, not just those at the largest workplaces. And to complement that, I will offer greater provision of pre-redundancy retraining through the Train to Gain scheme. We will also target the successful local employment partnerships not just on the harder to reach groups, but also on the short-term unemployed.
	There are still over half a million unfilled vacancies, and today I can announce a new initiative to help to fill them through national co-operation with the country's major employers. The national employment partnership, chaired by the Prime Minister, will involve 20 of the largest employers, including Tesco, Centrica and the Royal Mail, who have agreed to take part. Together, they employ over 2 million people. I welcome their commitment to work with us in speeding up recruitment, increasing vacancies through Jobcentre Plus and stepping up access to work-related training.
	It is the high-quality support, provided by Jobcentre Plus and the new deal programmes to those out of work that has underpinned the success in the last few years in helping people quickly back into employment. I am determined to provide the resources so that the network can continue its excellent service, and I am setting aside additional funding to ensure that Jobcentre Plus and the new deal have sufficient capacity.
	Today's employment measures are worth a combined £1.3 billion—essential to prevent a temporary job loss from becoming permanent unemployment. Again, all of those measures are only possible because we have taken the deliberate decision to support businesses, protect jobs and help home owners. I have set aside £1 billion in the reserve so that we can continue to help during difficult times and ensure that we emerge from the current downturn stronger and ready to seize the opportunities in front of us.
	I can also announce additional help for people of all ages. Turning first to motorists, we rightly have a system of car taxation that takes into account the environmental impact from different types of car. In the last Budget, I announced that I was going to take this further by increasing the number of bands for vehicle excise duty.
	As planned, the differential first year rates, which people pay when they buy a new car, will be introduced in April 2010 because it gives powerful incentives to provide less polluting cars.
	I intend to go ahead with the introduction of new bands, reflecting fuel efficiency, but it would be wrong to do this in a way that places undue burdens on motorists at this time. So I have decided to help people by phasing in new rates and lower rates of increase.
	First, in 2009, duty rates for all cars will increase by a maximum of only £5, as has been normal practice for a number of years. Secondly, from 2010, we will bring in differential increases in duty. In the original proposal, some cars would have seen increases of up to £90. Instead, I now propose that the more polluting cars will see duty increased, but up to a maximum of £30, and less polluting cars will see no increase, or a cut of up £30.
	For savers, we want to encourage those with modest incomes to put money aside. To help them, we are setting up a saving gateway, which will mean that the Government add money to every pound saved. From 2010, up to 8 million people on low incomes who put money into the saving gateway will get 50p added for every pound that they save. The saving gateway will be widely available through a range of banks, building societies and credit unions, and also the Post Office.
	I also intend to step up help for families with children. We have already announced that the child element of the child tax credit will increase by £50 above indexation next April. We have also announced a further increase in that credit of £25 above indexation in 2010. I now intend to pay both those increases together this April, making it worth, in total, £2,235 for modest-income families.
	The Government are also working with local authorities to improve further the take-up of tax credits and benefits because they have a key role in working well with families to tackle disadvantage and to extend opportunities for children.
	We are introducing a child poverty Bill next year, which will set in legislation our historic commitment to eradicate child poverty by 2020. I have already announced that child benefit, which was only £11.05 in 1997, will increase from £18.80 to £20 a week in April next year. We are supporting families as well as creating opportunities for all children.
	I also want to do more for pensioners. First, for pensioners on modest incomes, I can announce today an increase in pension credit in April. I will increase it from £124 to £130 a week for individual pensioners, and from £189 to £198 for pensioner couples. That is an increase above indexation—and the biggest increase in pension credit since it was introduced in 2003.
	I can also confirm that state pensions will increase in line with the highest rate of inflation this year. This will increase the basic state pension for a single person from £90.70 to £95.25—an increase of £4.55 a week. Now that inflation is expected to fall quickly, pensioners should see a real benefit.
	I do not want people to have to wait for this extra money. I want them to get it as quickly as possible, which will benefit them as well as the economy. So families will not have to wait until April to receive their increase in child benefit. Instead, they will start to get it in January—three months early.
	I want to do the same for pensioners. Pensioners are already getting the winter fuel payment—increased again this year. However, I want to do more. So I will ensure that every pensioner gets a one-off payment of £60, on top of the £10 Christmas bonus, from January. For couples, that figure will be £120, also paid from January. That £70 payment will also go to children with disabilities.
	In total, 15 million people will gain from the beginning of next year. We are helping pensioners, children and the economy.
	These are exceptional times and they require exceptional measures. They require action now to help people—and action now to help build a stable economy. We have made our choice. We are helping businesses and home owners. We are helping people into work and boosting incomes.
	All that is possible only because the Government have taken the deliberate decision to support people and businesses through these difficult times.
	I commend the statement to the House.

George Osborne: Listening to the Chancellor's speech, no one can doubt now that the Prime Minister's claim to have abolished boom and bust was one of the greatest deceits ever told to the British people.
	The Chancellor has just announced the largest amount of borrowing ever undertaken by a British Government in the entire history of this country. What he did not admit is that he is going to double the national debt, to £1 trillion, and that a national debt that has accumulated over centuries is going to double in just five years. That is the bill for Labour's decade of irresponsibility, initiated by the Prime Minister. To pay for it, the Chancellor has put in place a huge unexploded tax bombshell, timed to go off underneath the future economic recovery.
	The Chancellor talked about a 0.5 per cent. adjustment, but Labour Members did not understand what that means. It means that he is giving £20 billion in giveaways and taking back £40 billion in higher taxes, including the major rise in national insurance—a tax on the jobs and incomes of middle Britain. That is confirmation of the time-old truth that in the end all Labour Chancellors run out of money and all Labour Governments bring this country to the verge of bankruptcy.
	Stability has gone out of the window. Prudence is dead. Labour has done it again. Massive borrowing; rising unemployment; tax giveaways for Christmas, paid for by tax rises for life; giving with one hand and taking with another—everything that we have come to expect from this Prime Minister. He says that the recession will end halfway through 2009, but the tax rises will not come in until 2011. I wonder why he chose those dates. This Budget is all about the political cycle and not the economic cycle.
	Those borrowing figures are on a scale never before heard in the House of Commons. The £78 billion this year is almost double what the Chancellor forecast just eight months ago. The £118 billion next year is a record percentage of national income. He has added £512 billion to the national debt over the next six years—and by the way, that is based on growth forecasts that are vastly more optimistic than those of most independent forecasters. That means that the Chancellor is borrowing more on the nation's credit card than all previous Governments put together. Now the Chancellor is taking out another credit card, for, like the gambler who cannot give up, he still thinks that he can borrow his way out of debt.
	These are the excuses that the Chancellor has deployed. First, he claims that the recession has nothing to do with the people who have been running the country's economic policy for the past 10 years. "It's all America's fault," he says. What total nonsense. Was it America that gave Britain the biggest housing boom in the world? No. Was it America that gave Britain the highest levels of personal debt of any country in history? No. Was it America that gave Britain the largest budget deficit in the developed world? No. It was this Labour Government. No American politician said that they had rewritten the laws of economics. No American Treasury Secretary boasted that he had done away with the trade cycle and abolished boom and bust. It was the Prime Minister who said those ludicrous things, over and over again. He mistook a boom for stability and he never prepared Britain for the bust.
	The second excuse that the Chancellor made today was that he faces this recession from what he called a position of relative strength. Relative to whom? If he spoke to anyone other than the Prime Minister, he might find that his is not a view widely shared in the world. If he is right that Britain is better prepared, could he answer this simple question: why is the recession predicted to be worse here than anywhere else?
	The Chancellor reeled off a list of countries. Let me give him this list from the IMF. It says that Britain's recession will be more severe than those in America, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Spain and every other major economy in the world. What about this list from the Commission? Britain's structural deficit is almost double that of France, three times that of Italy and more than 10 times larger than the deficit in Germany. The truth is that the Prime Minister built our economic growth on the pillars of finance, housing and Government spending without once stopping to think what would happen if the pillars collapsed. He ran a huge budget deficit on the unstable premise that he could milk the City every year, and never considered what would happen to public finances when the money ran dry. He did not fix the roof when the sun was shining.
	That leads us to the third excuse used by the Chancellor today. He believes that the temporary tax measures that he has announced will deliver some huge demand boost to an economy that the Government have led into recession. Let us be clear that half of those measures are to compensate people for the Government's own 10p tax con and to delay the tax rises that he announced from the Dispatch Box just eight months ago. Labour MPs cheered the measures when they were introduced and now they cheer them when they are scrapped. I doubt whether the rest of the country will be so pathetically grateful that the Chancellor is going to wait a year or two before clobbering their family cars, empty properties and small businesses.
	As for the temporary VAT reduction, we will see whether it has the great economic effect that the Prime Minister expects. The Chancellor did not tell us that the German and French Governments have today ruled out a similar move because they do not think it will be effective. He did not tell us that already today many retailers are questioning the cost of implementing it and the impact that it will have on the high street, given that many shops are already selling things at 20 or 30 per cent. off. Borrowing money for a temporary cut when prices are already falling, and telling people that their taxes will go up to pay for it, is not much of a stimulus.
	What will make a difference are the massive new taxes on ordinary incomes and jobs that are just around the corner. The Chancellor got a cheer from the Labour Benches when he announced the higher top rate of income tax—no surprise there—but it will raise less than 5 per cent. of the black hole that he has to fill. It is designed to distract attention from the billions of pounds of extra taxes that are on their way for millions of hard-working families. Now we know at least one of those tax rises: national insurance, an income tax in all but name. The Chancellor did not give his figures, so I will: a £4 billion tax increase on families and jobs; more in tax for a qualified nurse, more for a police officer; £100 million on the annual NHS wage bill; £2 billion from British business. That is not just a bombshell; it is a precision-guided missile at the heart of a recovery.
	The final excuse that we heard from the Chancellor today was that, despite all the economic evidence of the past 40 years, Britain can borrow and spend our way out of this recession. Does he not see any parallels in what happened to Japan, which followed the path that he advocates and found itself saddled with debt and stagnation for a decade? The international bodies that he quotes in his defence have clearly stated that fiscal stimulus is an option only for countries with strong public finances. Perhaps this generation of Labour politicians needs to be reminded of what Jim Callaghan told them at a Labour party conference— [Interruption.] The Lord Chancellor was probably there.
	"We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting government spending. I tell you in all candour that that option no longer exists".
	If the candour of the last unelected Labour Prime Minister will not do, we can listen to what the current unelected Labour Prime Minister used to say:
	"We have learned from past mistakes...you cannot spend your way out of a recession".
	It turns out that he has forgotten past mistakes, and now he is condemned to repeat them.
	The Chancellor could have taken a different path today—the path of radical monetary action and responsible fiscal policy. That is the right route out of a recession. Instead of boasting about the bank rescue abroad— [Interruption.]

George Osborne: The hon. Member for Blyth Valley (Mr. Campbell) is very excited because he has his U-turn on the vehicle excise duty increase, for which he has been campaigning for so long. Unfortunately, it is coming down the track.
	Instead of boasting about his bank rescue abroad, the Chancellor could have made sure that he was rescuing the real economy at home. He could have got credit moving through the veins of the economy by telling us that he was directly insuring business lending—so small businesses are kept going, instead of storing up tax rises for them in the future. He could have helped the private sector get back on its feet with properly funded help on tax bills and employment costs instead of piling on them crippling debts and national insurance bills that will take ages to pay off. Instead of yet another phoney efficiency review while public sector waste runs rampant, he could have brought proper restraint and independent oversight to the way that public money is spent. He could have got a grip on Government spending so that in future the state lives within the country's means. That is what we would do and he would not. Instead he offers temporary tax give-aways paid for by a lifetime of tax rises for the British people, the national debt doubled and the future mortgaged to bail out the mistakes of the past.
	This is exactly the road Britain is now on with this Prime Minister and this reckless Budget. Far from being an action plan, it represents the greatest failure of public policy for a generation. It will make the recession worse because it will make the recovery more difficult. If Denis Healey had had to announce these figures, he would not have turned around at the airport; he would have kept going—but the right hon. Gentleman did not.
	When the Chancellor rises to reply, let him answer just these three straight questions. First, does he accept that the national debt will now double to £1 trillion? Secondly, does he have an explanation for why Britain is forecast to have the worst recession of any major economy? And will he confirm that families will be worse off because the tax cuts he announces are temporary, while the larger tax rises are permanent? I know that he will not want to answer those questions, but the choice at the next election could not be clearer. A record— [Interruption.] A record borrowing binge and a lifetime of tax rises under Labour, or fiscal sanity and lower taxes that last under the Conservatives.

Alistair Darling: The hon. Gentleman is right about one thing: there is a very clear choice before the country today—and that is between a Government who are prepared to help people and help businesses and an Opposition who are prepared to do absolutely nothing to help.  [Interruption.] He was also right to say that we have chosen to take a different path. We have taken a path that will help businesses, help pensioners and ensure that everyone is helped through a reduction in VAT. At no point in the hon. Gentleman's intervention did he even mention pensioners or children or families. He had absolutely nothing to say.
	The hon. Gentleman then warned about repeating the mistakes made by Japan. The mistakes made by Japan in the early 1990s were precisely to follow the course of action that he is advocating today. I know that because a Japanese Finance Minister told me that those were the mistakes that his country made. You would have thought, Mr. Speaker, that at this stage of a Parliament, when we have seen countries right across and all over the world recognising that action needs to be taken to support the economy, the shadow Chancellor would have had at least one suggestion to make to help people out of this difficulty. Instead, he has absolutely nothing.
	It appears that the shadow Chancellor is against the reduction in VAT. At least he has gone a bit further than the Leader of the Opposition, who was unable to tell Andrew Marr on Sunday whether he was for or against reducing VAT. The shadow Chancellor has nothing to say about the help that we are giving to businesses. Instead, all he is saying is that, faced with today's difficulties, which are recognised the world over, he is not prepared to take any action.
	In some ways, that should be no surprise. This is the shadow Chancellor whose judgment led him to back a call to get rid of mortgage protection regulation just before the problems arose in the housing market. He is the one who said that the International Monetary Fund would not support the idea of a fiscal stimulus across the world, only a day before the IMF said that that was precisely what was necessary. This is the man who said that the Bank of England could not cut interest rates because of our policy, just a week before it cut interest rates by the largest amount for many, many years.  [Interruption.]

Vincent Cable: Perhaps I may start with some of the positive points with which we can agree: the statement on repossessions, the action on small business lending, the programme on home improvement, and the postponement of the decision on retrospective vehicle excise duty.
	This is not a normal pre-Budget statement. We are experiencing a national economic emergency, and what is required, alongside radical cuts in interest rates and radical action on bank lending, is a serious tax cut concentrating on the low paid. The Chancellor has based his plans essentially on a temporary small cut in value added tax. I note that he is relying on the advice of a former Conservative Chancellor, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), in that regard.
	What I fail to see is how the economy receives a major stimulus from, for example, a £5 cut in the price of a £220 imported flat-screen television or a 50p cut in a £25 restaurant bill. Surely it would be much more sensible to put money directly in the pockets of low-paid workers by cutting their income tax, rather than offering them a pathetic £25 and, if they earn over £20,000 a year, the prospect of tax increases.
	The Government have at last, after 11 years, acknowledged that there is a problem of inequality relating to the tax system. What they propose is a higher rate of tax for very high earners, after two years—possibly. What is needed, surely, is a comprehensive approach which involves cutting income tax for low-paid middle-income families and removing the vast plethora of tax reliefs and allowances from which the wealthy benefit, rather than this very limited fig leaf for redistributive policy.
	What I find wholly incredible about the statement are the assumptions that the Government make about the future trajectory of the economy. They simply assume that after one bad recession year there will be an economic recovery. Buried in the Red Book is the assumption that after next year, the public sector need make no contribution whatever to economic growth. However, the problem is a very deep one. This is not just a conventional recession. We do not just have the home-grown problem of the bursting housing bubble and personal debt; we have the imported credit crunch.
	As far as the banks are concerned, the problem is very deep. The Prime Minister tours the world, a little bit like a celebrity heart surgeon, lecturing the uninitiated on how to carry out financial heart transplants, but meanwhile the patient back here is suffering very badly, because the banks are cutting credit and greatly increasing their margins. I welcome what the Chancellor said about the Royal Bank of Scotland's announcement yesterday; that was a positive step. I do not, however, know whether he is aware that today Barclays, whose balance sheet is twice as big as the Government's entire public debt, is in the process of negotiating a deal with Arab investors on such extortionate terms that it is bound to make a drastic reduction in bank lending at the expense of its British customers. It is all very well for the Government to say that they are setting up a panel to monitor bank credit, but what is the Chancellor doing to enforce the conditions that the banks have apparently agreed to?
	I welcome some of the Government's comments on public investment, particularly on housing, but let us just consider the status of the Government's commitment on housing, with their £700 million programme of social housing. The Government have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Land is available very cheaply in the current market, and they could make a programme of large-scale social housing construction, meeting housing need and providing employment in the construction industry, but despite the rhetoric and the promises, virtually nothing is currently happening. It is not happening because the housing associations are loaded with bad debt that they acquired in dodgy deals with developers, and the Treasury is blocking any fundamental reform in the housing subsidy system. Nothing is happening.
	To conclude, we have a very serious national economic crisis. The Conservatives do not acknowledge it, so they do not propose to do anything. The Government have rhetoric, but the rhetoric is not matched by their actions.

Alistair Darling: Although I do not agree with a lot of what the hon. Gentleman said, his response was a great deal more thoughtful than the shadow Chancellor's.
	I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's welcome for some of the measures that we have taken, particularly in relation to repossessions, but our announcements on both VAT reduction and the extension and increase of the amount of money that will go to basic rate taxpayers will help people on low incomes through what are undoubtedly difficult times. The hon. Gentleman's proposal for reducing income tax also comes with a promise to cut public spending very substantially—by about £20 billion—which would impact on the living standards of the very people he is concerned about.
	On lending to businesses, I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we need to make sure that we hold to account those banks in which we have shares. The Royal Bank of Scotland group has now agreed to take the Government money, and its announcement this weekend was extremely helpful. Assuming the Lloyds-HBOS merger goes ahead, that transaction will be completed in January, and we will need to make sure that they, too, are held to account. The additional Government help I have announced today of £1 billion being made available to small businesses is also important and will also make a difference. The hon. Gentleman said that he wanted banks to do more, but although I agree with him on that, he does not seem to agree with us on the action we are taking to spend more to encourage businesses and to give them the money they need to get through this difficult time, including the measures I announced this afternoon to help them pay their tax bills and to help those small businesses that are exporting.
	On housing, we are providing substantial sums to enable the building of more social housing, as well as to ensure the renovation of homes. Whenever anything is announced, the Liberals always call for more, yet it is not entirely clear how on earth they would be able to fund any of it given the fact that their tax and spending policies simply do not add up. I understand what the hon. Gentleman says, but I simply do not agree with him.
	I think that what we have announced today will go a long way. We are putting about £18 billion into the economy between now and April 2010. Such action is supported not just by a wide range of people in this country, but, increasingly, by countries across the world as absolutely essential, and the hon. Gentleman at least understands what the shadow Chancellor does not: many of the problems all of us face today are truly international.

Alistair Darling: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, who rightly says that in addition to everything that I have announced today it is important that we ensure that the banks maintain their lending. I have said in this House before that banks sometimes fall over themselves to try to get customers in the good times, and they must understand that it is in their interests as much as everybody else's that they continue to lend to people when times are difficult. We need to ensure that we hold those banks in which we have shares to account. As I have indicated today, and as he said, the credit guarantee scheme involves a lot of taxpayers' money—almost £100 billion has been subscribed to already—and we are entitled to see the banks treat their business customers, and, indeed, their personal customers, properly. Banks need to be held to account on that, and they need to deliver.

Alistair Darling: Yes. I believe that it is affordable. To put it another way, I share the view held by many that if we do not put this money into the economy now, the recession that we will face will be longer and deeper than it would otherwise be, and a greater cost will be paid, not only by the country as a whole but by every man, woman and child in this country. I am not prepared to take that risk. I believe that the Government have a responsibility to support people and to support businesses, and I believe that through the measures that I have announced today—substantial measures that will bring the budget back into current balance—it is affordable. The two objectives I had were to support the economy now and to ensure that we can live within our means in the medium term, and both those things are eminently deliverable.

Alistair Darling: I made it clear that we will of course review the position, as we would from Budget to Budget, but I have also made it clear that having put in place this fiscal stimulus—and recognising that tax revenues are likely to be affected for some time, especially because of what has happened to the financial services industry— we have to be prepared to raise revenue to ensure that we have sustainable public finances in the long term. I am prepared to take those decisions. There were two parts to what I announced today, as I have been making clear for some time: helping the economy, but also ensuring that we live within our means in the medium term.

Frank Dobson: May I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his decision to pump extra money into the economy? May I also congratulate him on targeting that money on the worst off families and individuals? Putting money in their pockets and handbags is fairer than anything anyone else has suggested, and they are also the most likely to spend it and benefit the economy generally. That is in contrast to the Opposition Front Bench—

Alistair Darling: I stand corrected.
	I might also say, in relation to the point that was just made by the hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Mr. Fallon)—I knew I had the figures somewhere—debt interest payments were 3½ per cent. in 1997 and, in 2010-11, they will be 2.6 per cent.

Alistair Burt: Will the Chancellor now answer one of the questions posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne), which he shamefully avoided at the beginning of his response to my hon. Friend? Why does the IMF believe that coming out of recession this country is worse placed than so many others?

Chris Mullin: Although there is much to be welcomed in my right hon. Friend's statement, his announcement on empty property rates will not save a number of the companies in my constituency—and, I am sure, elsewhere—that are destined to be put out of business by that tax. Pallion Engineering, for example, is due to see an increase in rates from £55,000 to £277,000 in a single leap. That would put it out of business. Did the Chancellor not consider relieving that tax entirely in regeneration areas, as some of us had urged him to do?

Alistair Darling: As I have said on a number of occasions, it is important that banks behave reasonably towards their customers. Part of the reason why we are setting up more intensive scrutiny of the banks is to ensure that if we see patterns emerging and if we believe that banks are reacting unreasonably, we can take appropriate action. The rest of Britain's banks could look at what the RBS Group is doing, because that might act as a model for other banks. They need to ensure that they treat their customers fairly because they will rely on those customers for their business in years to come.

Alistair Darling: The Conservative party, alone in the world, is trying to make out that, somehow, nowhere else in the world is affected by any of the problems of the past 12 months, but I have made it clear on many occasions that, over the past 10 years, we have built up an extremely strong economy. More people are in work. We have been able to do more to help people, particularly those who lost out in the Conservative years, and I have been able to announce more help today. Of course, I will accept responsibility for anything that I am charged with; but if the Conservative party wants to come up with solutions to today's problems, it might at least start by understanding what the problems are, and a lot of the problems emanate from the credit crunch.

Frank Field: May I bring the Chancellor back to the 6 million taxpayers who are still losers after the abolition of the 10p rate? Although I understand why he has had to find billions upon billions of pounds for City slickers who have got us into this mess, may I express my disappointment that the Government have not yet found the funds fully to compensate those lower-paid taxpayers who lost out with the abolition of the 10p rate? May I assure him that there would be tremendous support among Labour Members to ensure that, when he makes his Budget statement next year, he will be able to find those funds, fully compensate that group of workers and draw a line under that unhappy episode?

Alistair Darling: I understand people's concerns, particularly with the oil price coming down. Although that has many welcome effects, it obviously has an effect on the outlook in the North sea. As the hon. Gentleman knows, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and I met leaders of the oil industry in Banchory earlier this year. We agreed to work together. We are publishing further proposals today to allow us to develop such things further.
	One of the things that the industry told us is that it wants to work closely with us, because there is probably a coalition of interests: both of us want to ensure that we can extract everything that we possibly can from the North sea. We said that we will work closely with the industry to ensure that the tax regime helps that process. I am glad to say that I believe that we are working well together, and I hope that things will come to a satisfactory conclusion as soon as possible.

Gordon Banks: I welcome my right hon. Friend's announcements on small and medium-sized businesses throughout the UK, but will he continue to monitor both the specific and the general effects that the announcements today, and his actions in recent weeks, will and have had on the housing industry? Will he undertake to take necessary further action if he deems that it is important to do so?

Alistair Darling: Yes, I can give that undertaking. It is important that we recognise that the housing industry has been going through a difficult time. It is in all our interests that we maintain the supply of housing. The measures that I have announced today bring forward the amount of spending in the housing industry. We have made it clear to the Scottish Executive that if they wish to re-profile their spending, we would be very happy to talk to them. We have made that clear for several weeks now. If they want to do something similar, we will do our best to accommodate that.

Anne Main: Is the Chancellor seriously telling us that when we can get 20, 40, 70 per cent. off on the high street, and when there are buy one, get one free offers on houses and cars, the average hard-working family has simply been waiting for a 2.5 per cent. cut in VAT to press ahead and spend money it has not got? I do not think so.

Alistair Darling: My hon. Friend is right. I am sorry that the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) is no longer here, because I am sure that he only too well remembers what happened when the Tories wanted to increase VAT on fuel. It caused them considerable discomfort.
	I just do not agree with the Conservative party. I think that if we can help to reduce household bills and put money into the hands of people on low incomes, that is precisely what the Government ought to be doing at a time like this.

Stewart Hosie: On the help for families, we welcome the VAT cut and the vehicle excise duty changes, but question why on earth the Chancellor wants to put petrol duty up at this time. On the help for businesses, we welcome the flexibility that he has introduced, and the one-year deferral on the small companies corporation tax rate, but notice that there is no change to the standard rate, or to the income tax paid by the smallest businesses that do not pay corporation tax. On direct public investment, although he is borrowing £300 billion over the next three years, he is only bringing forward £3 billion of direct public investment from the 2010-11 Budget. That is not new money; it is simply being brought forward. Will the £3 billion be subject to Barnett consequentials?

David Heath: The Chancellor appears to have completely abandoned the normal purdah before budgetary announcements with the result that the VAT cut was the least unexpected announcement almost ever. But, if the purpose of the VAT cut was to put more money into the pockets of less well-off people, would not a targeted cut in income tax have done it better? If the purpose is to stimulate spending in our high streets, how is a 2.5 per cent. VAT cut going to work when 20 per cent. to 25 per cent. discounting in all major stores is not?

John Baron: The Government have not denied that, after this pre-Budget report, they will have borrowed more than all previous Governments combined. Given that the tax increases that the Chancellor announced today represent only a small fraction of the moneys needed to plug the black hole that he has created, will he at least admit that he may be forced to consider further tax increases, particularly if the recovery takes longer to come through than is expected?

David Anderson: It is obvious from the speech by the shadow Chancellor that his attitude is the same as that which his party took when in government in the past and when millions of people like myself were made redundant. This is not just a discussion about economics; it is about the social fabric of this country. Can I ask the Chancellor that, whatever he does over the next period, he does not use the terms, "Unemployment is a price worth paying", or, "If it is not hurting, it is not working"?

Alistair Darling: Given that the First Minister of Scotland has at his disposal nearly double what our late colleague Donald Dewar had only eight years ago, one would have thought that he could have made sure that he, too, was helping the economy in Scotland. I see that the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Stewart Hosie), who speaks for the Scottish National party on these issues, is no longer in his place. Perhaps he has gone to phone the First Minister to find out what he is doing.

David Laws: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. You will be aware of the confusion, caused by the statement of the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families in this place last Thursday, about access to the serious case review in the case of baby P.

Madam Deputy Speaker: Ministerial replies are, of course, the responsibility of the Minister in question, and certainly not for the Chair. What the hon. Gentleman has said is now on the record, and I think that that will lead to the clarification that he seeks.

John Healey: I beg to move, That this House disagrees with the Lords in the said amendment.
	It is a pleasure to see Opposition Front Benchers back in their places for the debates on the Bill as it moves into its final stages. We are missing the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson), who is at home after the birth of his third child. He is hardly old enough to have three children, but we wish him well—I understand that all is well.
	Their Lordships have sent us an amendment to the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to ensure that those who exercise planning functions have special regard to the preservation of gardens, groups of gardens or urban green spaces. I hope that I can explain to the House not only why the amendment should be rejected, but the steps that we propose to take to ensure that we properly examine the concerns that have been raised.
	As my noble Friend Baroness Andrews said in the other place last week and as was pointed out when this House debated the issue a couple of years ago, both on an Opposition motion and in relation to a Bill that the hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman) introduced—it is good to see her in her place, as she has long had an interest in such issues—local authorities can already set out strong and specific local policies in their local development frameworks to protect gardens in particular areas, if that is desirable and appropriate. In our planning policy statement 3, on housing, which was published in November 2006, we strengthened local authorities' hand in doing just that.

John Healey: I do not know in detail what the hon. Gentleman's council in Castle Point has done and cannot speak for it. However, he might want to ask his local authority why it is not taking full advantage of the planning system, as some are, by making back gardens a special feature of its policy, as part of its ability to make finely graded distinctions in the general category of brownfield land.

Richard Benyon: In case the planners in west Berkshire are watching this, let me give vent to their feelings by asking the Minister this. If the planners refuse applications, as they frequently do, to build high-density units on gardens when such developments would be inappropriate in certain areas, they are then refused on appeal, with the inspector citing national policy. That is the problem right up and down the country. Is the Minister saying that I, the planners in west Berkshire and everybody who is experiencing that is wrong?

Greg Clark: On PPS3, does the Minister accept that it might be appropriate for councils to take case-by-case decisions on gardens, rather than to have blanket policies that cover the whole borough? Not every garden needs to be preserved in aspic. It might be appropriate to consider each application on its merits and to make decisions in that way. Nothing that the Minister has said allays our concerns as to whether any council that tried to do that would be overturned on appeal.

Bob Neill: Before I leave the right hon. Gentleman to the tender mercies of my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait), can he help me on this matter? Given the Minister's surprising and uncharacteristic degree of cynicism, how does he square what he said with the statement of his ministerial colleague the noble Baroness Andrews, who said in the other place:
	"We support the underlying aim of the amendment."—[ Official Report, House of Lords, 12 November 2008; Vol. 705, c. 694.]?
	If the Government support the underlying aim, it cannot be logical to suggest that it comes from some motive to prevent excessive development.

John Healey: I think scepticism rather than cynicism is a proper description of my attitude. As I am trying to explain, the Government do not have closed minds on this issue, but we are first looking for firm evidence that there is a problem to which we need a solution in the form of change in policy; and secondly, in the light of what I just said, I am making it clear that we would be prepared to change our policy only if we were convinced that it did not also undermine our objectives on housing.

John Healey: The hon. Lady is right and it is a record that we have been proud of in recent years. From a low in 2001, we have reversed what had been a year-on-year decline in house building for 15 years before that. We are pleased and proud to see more houses built; we need more houses in this country. My response to the hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman) is that if the contribution of development on brownfield sites, which could include back gardens in some areas, is relatively stable, I fail to see the strength of the argument for saying that this is an urgent and pressing problem, particularly in the absence of any firm evidence to the contrary.

John Redwood: As we have just heard a pre-Budget report that turned out to be a Budget with an urgent and big tax change, will the Minister give us guidance from the Treasury Benches on how soon we will be able to debate and vote on the huge VAT change? It is very unusual to have a Budget, yet not be able to proceed to a Division on it.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I can rule on the point of order, but bearing in mind that this is a time-limited debate, I am not sure that we would be well served by having an extensive series of points of order, which will only take out more of the time available to debate the important matter before the House.
	Let me say this, which should be helpful to the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Angela Browning) and the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr. Lilley): a point of order cannot be directed to the Minister. It can be directed only to the Chair, which I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman understands. He will know that the Chair cannot generally determine the House's business. Mr. Speaker will always carefully consider any requests for consideration of an urgent question or for an emergency debate. Those are the procedures that right hon. and hon. Members may follow to establish whether what they want the House to debate can be debated in the immediate future.

John Healey: We have not yet made up our minds about the terms of the review, but I will take into account what the hon. Lady has said. A number of Members are clearly very interested in this issue, and if they wish to make their own contributions to the debate, I look forward to hearing them. Meanwhile, let me conclude my own opening remarks.
	Many Members who have spoken today have professed to believe in the proper power of elected local authorities. Imposing a blanket duty of this nature would take from elected local representatives the power to make proper, balanced judgments based on their knowledge of the overall needs of their areas. I believe that such decisions are best made by democratically elected councillors, working with local planners, who are much closer to the needs of local people and who will be better acquainted with the particular characteristics of any piece of land that may or may not be suitable for housing.
	It is not right to tie the hands of local councils and planning authorities. It is not currently necessary for councils to protect gardens, and such action would distort planning decisions and the scope for appeals. Above all, there is as yet no systematic evidence that there is a problem in need of this solution. However, we have not closed our minds to the concerns that have been expressed, and we are prepared to review the evidence in the new year. If there is a clear problem, we will act. In the meantime, I hope that the House will accept that ours is a reasonable response which constitutes a sensible next step, and that until the review has been completed it makes no sense to pre-empt its finding and jump to policy conclusions, let alone amendments to legislation. I therefore hope that the House will support me in rejecting Lords amendment No. 115.

Jacqui Lait: I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson). It is a pleasure to see the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Julia Goldsworthy), but the hon. Gentleman is a stalwart of the Bill, and it would have been nice to see him here. Of course, he might have preferred to be present in a week or two when the baby starts squalling!
	I am grateful to Earl Cathcart for tabling the amendment, which follows a long tradition. Both my hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) and my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman) tried desperately, through the medium of private Members' Bills, to persuade the Government to recognise that garden grabbing was an issue; and it is possible that I was the first person to raise the whole issue of overdevelopment, in a Westminster Hall debate. There is a long history of battling with the Government on this issue.

Jacqui Lait: The hon. Gentleman does not go far enough. I quite agree that as soon as a planning application is agreed in a street, there is a gradual change in that location, but there is nothing, even in conservation areas, to stop the Planning Inspectorate granting planning permission on appeal. That has happened on a very nice street in my constituency, where there has been appeal after appeal after appeal, and eventually the Planning Inspectorate gave permission. As a result, like a series of collapsing dominoes, the nature of that street will change. That is what everybody finds so objectionable.
	The Government try hard to play the innocent in all this by saying that PPS3 is no different from what went before, but it is very different. As Baroness Andrews identified in the other place, this started in 1985 when there was a need to categorise land use. That was when the category "residential R" was used to include
	"houses, flats and adjoining garages, gardens, estate roads and pathways. Sheltered accommodation where residences have separate front entrances."
	This was a convenient way of grouping statistical information, and nothing more than that.
	Then, in 1992 Chris Patten issued a new version of planning policy guidance note 3, which did not include any such definition of gardens as brownfield, nor did it contain density targets. Indeed, the guidance discouraged residential infill where inappropriate and gave a broad discretion to councils to protect the character of their locality.
	In 2000, there was a revised PPG3, and in 2006, the then Minister for Housing, the right hon. Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), stated in a written answer that the PPG3 of 2000
	"set out the definition of previously-developed land for the purposes for planning for housing, derived from urban land uses based on the Land Use Change Statistics classification introduced in 1985 but not previously articulated in planning guidance."—[ Official Report, 21 March 2006; Vol. 444, c. 296W.]
	That is the difference—the Government introduced the change in the PPG3 of 2000. Although I welcome the Minister's announcement today of a review, it would be helpful if he examined the history, recognised what happened in 2000 and accepted that it is the Government's fault that we are where we are.
	The excuses have changed as this debate has gone on, and the next excuse, which is relatively new and has been expressed today, relates to the local development frameworks. Those of us who have been watching the progress of LDFs have been astounded by how slowly they have come through, how often they have been sent back for revision and change, and how few have gained permission and agreement. It is, to say the least, disingenuous for the Government to claim that, under the LDF, councils have the right to set out their views on garden grabbing. Theoretically, the Planning Inspectorate has the final say on LDFs, of course, but if there is an instruction under the PPG3 of 2000 to include gardens, councils have very little chance of getting things through. Additionally, just recently we all thought the LDFs represented a binding decision in relation to the Planning Inspectorate, but they were recently challenged—in the High Court, I believe, in the case of the Crawley LDF—and the judge found against the inspectorate. So, the LDF is no longer binding, which decisively shoots any protection offered out of the water.
	Much of what we are talking about—such as the difficulties involved in a local authority retaining control over the identity of its own area—has been challenged and changed by this Government. I suppose it is some comfort that, from a very quick reading, the Killian Pretty review seems to be suggesting that most of what the Government have introduced should be altered so that local authorities regain their ability to be much more in control of their own planning. We hope that the Government accept the review findings, and we will be looking out for what happens to that review. However, in order to ensure that as much pressure as possible remains on the Government to amend the Bill so we have an end to garden grabbing, I shall advise my hon. Friends to vote with the Lords and against the Government motion to disagree.

Julia Goldsworthy: I will be sure to pass on the many congratulations from all parts of the House on the arrival of Elowen Ruby Rose Rogerson, and I can safely say that, although my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) has committed a huge amount of time to this Bill, he would prefer to be with his family and their new arrival at this very special time.
	A series of important issues arise in the groups of amendments that we are discussing, so I shall speak only briefly. The Liberal Democrats support Lords amendment No. 115, which is the culmination of concern from Members in all parts of the House. As the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) said, the hon. Members for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman) and for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) introduced private Members' Bills to protect back gardens and public open spaces, particularly in suburban areas, where there seems to be a greater problem than in other areas.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt) first raised this issue just six weeks after being elected to Parliament, and the proposal in her excellent Local Government and Planning (Parkland and Windfall Development) Bill would have gone further than this amendment, by allowing for local referendums to decide when public open spaces can and cannot be sold off. That was an interesting and innovative proposal which would have handed real power back to communities, who are rightly concerned that the character of their areas is being adversely and irreparably affected by developments in gardens and open spaces.
	It is a travesty that much needed green space in urban areas is lumped into the category of brownfield land, and that the Government are insisting that there is not a problem when eminently developable, genuinely brownfield public sector land lies largely unused. Earlier this year, my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit pik) received a ministerial response stating that 70 per cent. of the land owned by the Department of Health is not being used. Ministers cannot insist that communities accept unquestioningly new development on their public open spaces without at least putting their own houses, and the land on which houses could be built, in order. There is a large amount of brownfield land in my constituency, but it is highly contaminated from heavy metals from mining. Even in such areas, there is a hierarchy of brownfield sites, and often back gardens are the most attractive and most affordable to develop.
	I hope that the review will look into such concerns and that it will be forward-looking in scope as well as backward-looking. There are great concerns in my constituency that the housing targets set by the regional spatial strategy can be fulfilled only by developing every available space in the entire constituency.

Julia Goldsworthy: My hon. Friend makes a good point about how the incentives are skewed towards the development on gardens in too many cases.
	In announcing his review today, the Minister is being very helpful. The Minister in the other place, whom my colleagues there have said was helpful and courteous throughout, has used the excuse that there has not been time to consult on the implications of this amendment. The review is very welcome, but I am not clear why there has been no opportunity to initiate such a review before today, given that the Bill has been going through the House for 11 months and the issue has been raised on numerous occasions by Back Benchers. I would appreciate some comment from the Minister on why a decision has now been taken to carry out that review, given that it would perhaps have been more timely to have made such a decision earlier. It is a little frustrating, because Ministers have been constructive in another place on a number of other issues, so it would perhaps have been more sensible for the Government to have tabled their own amendment to reflect the concerns that residents all over Britain have about this issue. Such a provision could have been inserted into the Bill and perhaps made subject to regulation. That would have given a lot of people more confidence that this issue was being directly addressed.

Lorely Burt: May I offer my hon. Friend another example? In Solihull, the Government have ignored our regional development plan and have commissioned another independent consultancy, Nathaniel Lichfield and Partners, which has come up with recommendations that treble the already agreed allocation of new housing for the borough of Solihull. Perhaps she might like to ask the Minister how that can be and how it sits with the comments that he is making about putting decision making in the hands of the people who are elected in their local areas.

Julia Goldsworthy: In too many cases, it seems that the wishes of the local community are being undermined by the Bill, yet it is an opportunity to promote them. The Minister is in denial about the scale of the assault on back gardens and on small, but often highly valued, open spaces in urban areas. I welcome the door opening a crack, through the chance to examine this issue in the review, but before we are fully reassured we will need to hear much more detail on its terms and implications.
	All too often, particularly in the Department for Communities and Local Government, excellent reports are commissioned but then, unfortunately, gather dust on top shelves once they have been completed. Members across the House are acutely aware of the need to build more housing, particularly social housing and affordable housing. We have suggested innovative ways to increase our social housing stock after a decade of failure in that area. As ever, the aim surely must be not only to build houses but to foster and maintain living, vibrant communities. It is not just about plonking people in rows of boxes; we must create places in which people want to live, work and grow up. We need places that are not just environmentally friendly but a friendly environment in which to live. Back gardens and open spaces in which to meet and play are essential to achieving that aim, so, for those reasons, my hon. Friends and I will support the amendment.

Caroline Spelman: I welcome the opportunity to speak, given my long-standing interest in back garden development, and I wish to pay tribute to the work of many hon. Members present who have taken up this cause. An interesting feature of the debate on the definition of gardens and how best to protect them is that it has elicited so much interest from Members from all parts of this House, as well in another place. That has come in the guise of an early-day motion signed by 179 Members representing all partiesthey were not whom one might call the usual suspects, but Members whose constituencies were badly afflicted by this problem of back garden developmentand in the guise of ten-minute Bills and private Members' Bills tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), the hon. Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt) and I. Those things, of themselves, indicate how seriously Members in the House of Commons take this issue.
	I dispute the Minister's view that the most recent changes to planning guidance afford adequate protection to gardenspatently, they do not. I detect a degree of complacency in the attitude of a Government who are prepared to wait until even next year for a review to take place. Plenty of evidence is available to show that the existing guidance simply does not work. That is because of a deadly combination when these cases go to appeal. It is comprised of the definition of brownfield land extending to gardens, housing targets, and density targets. The combination of those three things takes precedence in the hierarchy of decision making when the planning inspector reviews a case where planning consent has been refused. There is plenty of evidence to show that since the introduction of that change to planning guidance in 2006 the defence that the Minister cites is simply not working. Local planning authorities know that, developers know that and communities know thatto their cost.
	The fact that the change to planning guidance has now been in force for more than 18 months flies in the face of people's experience. As recently as last week, I was contacted by a local action group called the Friends of Middleton Conservation Area. Its local council, Darlington borough council, had refused a controversial application for garden development, not least because the application related to a conservation area. The application went to appeal, and despite strong representations from the council, the decision was overturned.
	I raise that examplethere are many more such examplesnot only because it crossed my desk last week, 18 months after the introduction of the change in guidance to which the Minister referred, but because the application was for development in a conservation area. If a local council is overruled when trying to prevent inappropriate development in a conservation area, surely something is drastically wrong with the planning system.
	I urge hon. Members to think long and hard about the legacy of the prioritisation of brownfield land, including gardens. The legacy is significant in terms of the environment and infrastructure. I have seen at first hand the environmental legacy in areas where inappropriate garden development has been permitted. Neighbourhoods that were once a finely balanced mix of green spaces and homes have been changed beyond recognition. Family homes have been demolished, trees have been felled and hedges have been uprooted. Gardens that were a rich source of urban biodiversity have been stripped back and buried under concrete, with all the environmental implications that follow.
	Not only is the natural environment under assault, but the architectural environment is too. In some cases, old family houses have been bulldozed to make way for high-density, multi-storey apartment blocks. Likewise, bungalows are in developers' sights in a rush to create high-density housing.

Caroline Spelman: I thank the hon. Lady for that example, and I am happy to trade another horrifying example from this past yeara year after the changes in planning guidance were made that were supposed to be the salvation of back gardens. Two bungalows in Marston Green in my constituency were proposed for demolition to make way for 71 apartments. And that was on a narrow, tree-lined lane with difficult access.
	As politicians, we have to ask ourselves where we are going with this. We know that there is a shortage of family-sized homes, especially with gardens. That was acknowledged by the Chief Secretary, when she was Housing Minister. We know that our country has an ageing population. People are living longer and the evidence is that they will want to live longer in their own homes, which makes the rush to demolish bungalowsthe very type of home that will be vital to many older people's ability to sustain themselves at home for longersuch nonsense. We know that there is a chronic shortage of affordable homes, so it is perverse that developers are almost directed to build high-density housing on areas with a high land value, with the consequences that we have all seen: large numbers of luxury apartments while housing lists grow in our constituencies, and those who desperately need housing not able to attain the affordable housing that the Government set out to achieve.
	We also know that flood risk will dominate over the coming years, so why on earth are we relying on a planning system that says it is a good idea to concrete over urban green spaces, thereby reducing the drainage capacity? I have seen a particularly bad case of that in Cheltenham, which is prone to flooding and severely affected by the phenomenon of garden grabbing. Sir Michael Pitt, who led the Government's review of last summer's floods, told the BBC that garden grabbing had increased the risk of further flooding. He said:
	If it was just one house and one garden, this would not be an issue. It's the cumulative effect over time of many, many properties.
	It would be a mistake for the Government to ignore that advice.
	If the Minister requires evidence of whether his planning guidance is working, he need look no further than GardenOrganic, a website set up by people who want to protect gardens. Every week, examples of garden grabbing are cited on that website, from Ballyrobert in Northern Ireland, from Cardiff in Waleswhere it is proposed to develop a reservoir site for housingand from Forest Hill in London. It is happening all over the country, which is why it excites the interest of so many Members, here and in the other place.
	It was Members in the other place who voted in favour of this amendment. Clearly, they saw that the law is not strong enough to provide the necessary protection for gardens. It boils down to the fundamental question of whether Ministers in Whitehall know better about local planning applications than the communities that will be affected and the people whom those communities elect to represent them. Members of Parliament can argue about the rights and wrongs of various planning applications, but the basic question must surely be who is best placed to make the decisionstown hall or Whitehall? If we have really reached the stage where the Government do not even trust councils to determine which residential gardens are suitable for development and which are not, the lip service that the Government pay to decentralisation is risible.
	I shall now turn my attention to the way in which the Government have changed their response to the issue of garden grabbing, which may help to explain why they object to the amendment. I cannot help but notice, because I have been campaigning on this issue for so long, that the Government's various attempts to stonewall have been built on shifting sands. When garden grabbing was debated first, it came under the remit of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minster, and the objection from the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) was that the need for house building was such that gardens were a legitimate source of development. When the baton was passed to the right hon. Member for Bolton, West (Ruth Kelly), she moved the Government's position and instead maintained that councils already had powers at their disposal to prevent garden grabbing. Now the issue rests with the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, and I note that there has been another change of tack.
	When this amendment was debated in the other place, the Government insisted that they could not support the amendment because they needed to consult with local government first. Far be it from me, or any other hon. Member, to second guess the view of local government, but I think that it is safe to say that giving local councils more power over local planning decisions could only be welcomed by local government. Are Ministers honestly trying to tell us that giving councils the power to protect gardens where they think that appropriate will be controversial, and that for that reason we should oppose this amendment? If that is their last line of defence, the argument has certainly been won, even if the vote is not.
	Sadly, the fact that we are debating an amendment to remove a clause to give councils the power to protect gardens shows how hostile to local communities this Government have now become. There is a stark contrast in the way this issue has been approached. The Government have been inconsistent in their reasons for seeking to prevent gardens from having greater protection in planning law. They have gone from defending garden development to blaming local councils for not using what powers they do have. When it came to my own private Member's Bill, Labour Members talked it out rather than pressing it to a Division, but hon. Members from both sides of the House who have campaigned for more protection for gardens have put forward a reasoned, consistent and common-sense case for tightening the loophole. Hon. Members who signed the early-day motion on the issue might wish to think long and hard about the consistency of that signature with how they vote on the issue tonight.
	Clause 194 is an historic opportunity for us to change planning law in a way that will strengthen local communities, and safeguard the environment and infrastructure that underpin where people live. Members in the other place have shown that they are willing to speak up for the growing body of people who want to see their neighbourhoods and communities protected. If at the end of today's debate this clause is removed, the public will judge this Government very harshly.

John Healey: I heard what the hon. Lady said earlier, and I have just referred to what she said about Bromley. In a way, the point partly applies to the remarks of the hon. Member for Meriden, who seemed to be arguing that we should move away from not only the question of development in gardens but the priority of brownfield sites per se.
	Let me pick up on the point about blanket directions at a national level. They are simply unlikely to suit all circumstances. The hon. Member for Beckenham cites figures that are apparently from Bromley. In 2005, for instance, Basildon council informed us that not 20-odd per cent.as was the case in Bromleybut 72 per cent. of such developments were on previously developed or residential land. The reason for that was that during that period in Basildon there was, quite rightly, a large programme of demolitions, as the town had a lot of pressure on it for housing and a lot of previously developed land. There was a large programme of demolitions, in particular the demolition of the old Five Links estate, and of replacing the demolished areas with new housing and new estates with private gardens. In short, it involved the redevelopment of land that had previously been residentialthe sort of areas that, in blanket terms, hon. Members are concerned about. It resulted in more houses with gardens for more families. That is exactly the sort of development the hon. Member for Meriden wants to see and that hon. Members are keen to encourage.
	The hon. Member for Beckenham, as well as one or two other hon. Members in their many interventions, tried to argue that the Planning Inspectorate'sPINS'sdecisions are one of the sources of the problems and the reasons for the increase in garden development. There is no serious evidence of PINS's overturning local authority decisions on brownfield development just because the developments are on garden land. Figures that have been provided to us by the PINS service show that, in the couple of years before the early autumn of 2005 and 2007, 28.5 per cent. of appeals were granted on minor dwellingson fewer than 10 dwellings. In other words, in more than 70 per cent. of the cases, PINS supported the local authority decision. I therefore think that it is an inconclusive argument, at best, to say that the problems are somehow created by the Planning Inspectorate and its series of decisions.
	The sort of approach that we are confronted with, as a House, is not merely about pre-empting the sort of proper evidence base to make such decisions. It is worth stressing now a point that I touched on earlier but did not develop. Such an approach would prevent the Secretary of State from setting aside decisions made in accordance with the adopted local policies of a planning authority for the protection of gardens or green space, effectively removing the discretion to take account of other considerations, such as the design or suitability of transport links, in determining appeals.
	If the Lords amendment is not rejected, and we do not have the opportunity to assemble the evidence, debate the policy options that might be appropriate or consult on any potential legal changesas the Conservative-led Local Government Association made clear in a briefing on the Bill this afternoon that it would rightly wish to seewe risk distorting the planning process and also the scope for appeals. Such a provision would place restrictions on the right of appeal of ordinary home and garden owners against the decision of a planning authority and could also touch on human rights issues.
	I have confirmed that, in the new year, we will undertake a review of the evidence. The debate, I have to say, has not added to the evidence base. It has added to the list of individual examples and anecdotes and has reinforced the understandable sense of concern that hon. Members say that they have about what goes on in their area. I tell those Members who are concerned that one useful step that they might consider is that of asking their local authority what use it makes of the scope available under PPS3. Furthermore, although in general I am not one to promote the views of the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles), they might want to consult him on the approach that his local authority has taken. In our experience, it is one of the few local authorities to have in place the sort of planning policies that make distinctions that are locally justified, locally rooted and locally determined within the category of brownfield land for priority development.
	I welcome the fact that the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Julia Goldsworthy) said that she regards the confirmation of a review that I announced today as helpful. I welcome the welcome that the hon. Member for Beckenham gave to that review. I hope that she considers it as a new step, which is sensible and reasonable in the circumstances. I hope that she and other hon. Members will reflect on the fact that jumping beyond that approach to a conclusion that the policy and the legislation require change is not sensible or reasonable. There is a proper order for such things. We intend to undertake that review and will then establish whether there is systematic evidence that would warrant the changes for which some have argued this afternoon.
	I hope that the hon. Member for Beckenham will not press the amendment to a Division. If she does, I shall have to ask my hon. Friends to stick with the view that the House should disagree with the Lords on amendment No. 115.

Jacqui Lait: I acknowledge that we did not discuss this issue in Committee. However, the amendment goes to the heart of our disagreement with the Government on the community infrastructure levy. The Minister will remember that we tabled many amendments in Committee. In fact, we objected to this aspect of the Bill from Second Reading onwards. My hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles)he was delighted to receive the Minister's praise about his local development framework, although he says that it is not working in the way set outand I made the accusation that CIL was akin to ship money, because it was taxation without parliamentary approval.
	We have been suspicious all along about CIL because of the original references within the Bill to land values, and we will be able to thank the Government for accepting our recommendations and removing all references to land values should we reach that stage. However, the initial references to land value essentially meant that there was a taxation element to the community infrastructure levy. There was also a reluctance, to put it politely, by the Government to repeal the Planning-gain Supplement (Preparations) Act 2007, which if it remains on the statute book will allow CIL to be set up to fail, which was always at the back of my mind with this policy. The Government have sort of conceded on that, and there is an agreement in one of the amendments that the Treasury may repeal the 2007 Act. The House might like to note that I have tabled an amendment that it must repeal it. Until the references to CIL as a tax are out of the Bill, no one will believe that it is anything other than another form of taxation.
	Our problem with the Government's disagreement with the Lords on Lord Jenkin's amendment is that it reinstates the argument that CIL is a tax. One of the difficulties that we have had throughout our discussions on CIL is the sheer lack of information about what it would be, how it would constituted, what form it would take, and who would be the charging authoritythe Secretary of State or someone else. Again, just in case we do not get to that bit, I acknowledge that the Government have removed references to the Secretary of State as the charging authority. It now relates only to local authorities, which is what we argued for all along.
	The Government are denying the House of Lords the ability to consider and, if it wishes, to vote on the regulations on CIL. Although the House of Lords graphically said that CIL had moved from skeletal in its detail to anorexic, we still know little about it and it is not clear whether it is a tax or a levy collected by a local authority. We disagree with the Government because we wish to make it as clear as possible that CIL is a levy. It is not, and should not be, a tax.
	Part of the debate in the Lords regarded the fact that there is no clear precedent on what financial matters can and cannot be discussed there other than, of course, the well-known exception of the Budget. Lord Jenkin cited the fact that both Houses have discussed national insurance, council tax, business rates, the business improvement district levy, the climate change levy, and other charges. One or two of those are collected centrally. The community infrastructure levy allegedly is not going to be collected centrally; it is going to be collected by local authorities. The crucial difference is that the money raised from the levy is not going into the consolidated fund. Therefore, it is not taxation; it is a levy agreed between a developer and a local authority. It is appropriate that the Lords, who aredare I admit it?much more expert than we are in many areas, should consider the regulations.
	CIL is still not clear; there is much work still to be done between the Government, industry and the professions involved in development. It is crucial that the regulations be examined in great detail when they come before the Houses of Parliament. It is absolutely correct that the House of Lords should be invitedindeed, should expectto scrutinise the regulations, which will benefit from its scrutiny. If the Government are not prepared to concede that their lordships have a real role in ensuring that CIL is as workable as possible, I will have to return to my original suspicionthat the Government regard CIL as another form of taxation, that the planning gain supplement has not gone away, that what the Government have said so far is merely warm words, and that the development industry is facing another tax in these difficult times when they are not able to do much, if anything, in the way of development.
	If and when better times return, the industry will face another tax, and the implication of another tax is that it will take even longer to build the houses and development needed to get this country going, so that it can meet the challenges of the 21st century in very different circumstances. I therefore support the Lords in their amendment, and will be voting against the Government.

Julia Goldsworthy: We Liberal Democrats welcome Lords amendment No. 160, which improves the Bill by seeking to reassert the role of the other place. It is a matter of great regret that the Government are attempting to freeze the second Chamber out of considering important regulations. The Minister argued that we are talking about a matter of financial privilege for this House. That sets a dangerous precedent for other regulations, and is not consistent with the consideration that the Lords give to other issues, such as council tax and business rates, which are both collected locally, and the business improvement district levy. Why should the CIL regulations be any different from regulations on those issues?
	The Government have rightly removed the Secretary of State from the list of CIL charging authorities, so it is clear that we are talking about a matter for local determination, and not national taxation. The House of Lords Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee accurately reported that the receipts from CIL are not to be paid into the Consolidated Fund, but will be spent by the receiving body. Crucially, it also reported that key clauses that the legislation will leave to regulations are not obviously financial. The regulations relate to liability for the charge, charity law, rights of appeal and compensation, all of which are issues of legislative principle, not financial privilege.
	Baroness Hamwee, my colleague in another place, argued that the provisions are so ill thought out that clause 207 should be excised altogether and brought back in another Bill, when Ministers know what they want to do. Instead, the Government have tried to put the charge on the legislative express train, whose final stop will be a 90-minute debate in a tiny Committee of this House.
	Unfortunately, this is not the first assault on the role of the other place; Ministers have had a go at doing the same thing before, with proposals to thwart the role of the House of Lords in deciding on secondary legislation. The Joint Committee on Conventions looked into the issues in detail in 2006, and comprehensively rejected the case for impeding the ability of peers to say no to regulations on occasion. Indeed, it found, quite specifically:
	There are situations in which it is consistent both with the Lords' role in Parliament as a revising chamber, and with Parliament's role in relation to delegated legislation, for the Lords to threaten to defeat an SI. For example ... when the parent Act was a 'skeleton Bill', and the provisions of the SI are of the sort more normally found in primary legislation.
	Part 11 of the Bill is so skeletal as to be positively emaciated. That is why we tabled amendment (a) to Lords amendment No. 160to restore the basic right of a second Chamber in a bicameral Parliament to reject, in the last resort, a legislative proposal of which it does not approve. Ministers sometimes seem to forget that statutory instruments are legislation and should be treated as such. It is only right to treat them in that way, in terms of process, because we get better regulations as a result. The amendment is a welcome step forward.

John Healey: Lords amendment No. 160 was introduced on Third Reading in another place. It would put in place a new procedure for the Lords' role in secondary legislation. As such, it would create a precedent in the constitutional relations between this House and the other place. It is not appropriate to make such changes and precedents, which could affect other forms of secondary legislation, at the tail end of a Planning Bill.
	I return to the principal point: the provision is on a financial issue that should rightly be a matter for this elected House of Commons. Since the Bill's publication, the provision has been that there would be an affirmative procedure for the CIL regulations. That provision was not subject to any proposed amendment in any of its stages in this House. It is not appropriate to make the change now, and therefore if Opposition hon. Members press Lords amendment No. 160 to a Division, I encourage my hon. Friends to reject it.

Question accordingly agreed to.

John Healey: This large group of amendments relates to parts 1 to 8 and part 12, which are concerned with the creation of a new single consent regime for nationally significant infrastructure projects. At each stage of the Bill in both Houses, that issue has been subject to detailed parliamentary debate and scrutiny. However, even in the months since we first published the Bill, we have seen economic circumstances change dramatically. We have seen the effect of instability in the world energy markets, and it has never been so evident. That has concentrated minds still further on our national need for new investment in energy generation, and in particular on our need to replace one third of our electricity generation within the next 20 years or so.
	In the nine months since we first debated the Bill, the world has become even more conscious of the threat of climate change. We have now pledged to move towards a carbon reduction of not 60 per cent. but 80 per cent. in this country by 2050. Doing that will require a tenfold increase in renewable generation over the next 12 years. Finally, the issues of pressure and competitiveness in the world economy and competition for much needed investment in this country are now even clearer.
	Let us take, for example, Shell Haven port. That new development represents a 1.5 billion investment and will create in Britain the largest new logistics centre in Europe. The promoters estimate that it will generate 12,000 jobs, raise skills and bring huge regeneration benefits to the Thames Gateway. It will also reduce by 40 million km a year the distance travelled by heavy goods vehicles on UK roads. The UK needs such investment, but we must also create the right sort of environment for it, including a better planning system. That means implementing the reforms set out in the Bill.
	There have been excellent debates throughout the Commons stagesnot least in Committeeon the role of the IPC, its powers and accountability, the role of the national policy statements in providing a clear policy framework for IPC decisions, the type and size of projects that should be captured in the new regime and the accessibility of the new regime to the public. Those debates continued in the other place and the Bill has been much strengthened by amendments, many of them set out in this group.
	Many of the amendments to these parts of the Bill are minor and technical. I shall concentrate on the most important amendments, which significantly strengthen the Bill.

John Healey: My hon. Friend has a long-standing interest in these questions and good working links with environmental health officers. I think that I can give her those reassurances, although she would probably find it more useful if I set them out in detail, to respond to her concern in the light of amendments that have been made. I undertake to do so.
	I turn to the most significant issues, particularly in respect of the strengthening of the Bill in the other place. I shall start with parliamentary scrutiny. Through parliamentary scrutiny and especially through national policy statements, Ministers will continue to take the big decisions. Those will be visible and at the front of the process rather than at the back end, as is the case under the current system. Once the national policy statement is in place, it will set the principal framework for any IPC decisions on particular applications.
	If the national policy statements are to function effectively, they must be authoritative and strong. That is why we are committed to ensuring that they are thoroughly tested through public consultation and through a new system of parliamentary scrutiny that we have developed in discussion with the Chairs of the relevant Select Committees. Lords amendment No. 7 will strengthen the role of the other place in the scrutiny of national policy statements. The amendment extends the requirement that the Secretary of State is required to lay before Parliament a statement setting out her response to a Committee of this House or of either House.
	I turn now to climate change, a subject of strong debate throughout this House's scrutiny of the Bill. A number of my hon. Friends have strongly championed a strengthening of the provisionsnot least my hon. Friends the Members for Pudsey (Mr. Truswell) and for Stroud (Mr. Drew), who are the principal advocates of an amendment to Lords amendment No. 8. If I explain to my hon. Friends how we have strengthened the Bill through amendments in the Lords, perhaps that will give the proper context and explain some of the problems that I envisage with their amendment (a).
	Lords amendment No. 8 looks to alter the current duty in relation to sustainable development which requires the Secretary of State to draw up or review national policy statements with the objective of contributing to the achievement of sustainable development. Let me explain what is meant by that. The concept of sustainable development sits at the heart of planning. It catches the range of our economic, social and environment objectives and ensures that we focus on developing our country in a way that is sustainable in the long term and protects the needs of future generations as well as the current one.
	Achieving such sustainable development will require Ministers to address climate change. We must also address issues such as landscape, biodiversity and natural resources and integrate them in a sensible and balanced way that allows at the same time consideration of certain social and economic concerns. In that way, the policy will bring those elements together. We have debated the concept of sustainable development a number of times during the passage of the Bill and we believe that it should be the guiding principle for Ministers as they prepare the national policy statements. That is why clause 10 places such importance on it.
	We recognise, however, that as we have debated the various stages of the Bill, Members of this House and the other place have expressed a strong desire to put something more explicit in the Bill to reflect the importance of climate change. That argument has been strongly led by my hon. Friends the Members for Pudsey and for Stroud, as well as by my hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Paddy Tipping), who is not in his place at the moment. We therefore made amendments to the Bill in the other place. However, we have been conscious of not unbalancing the principle of sustainable development by elevating the consideration of climate change and design to such a degree that other considerations would be relatively marginalisedsuch as jobs and investment, health, a just society and other environmental factors such as the protection of biodiversity or the natural environment.
	The formulation that we have set out in Lords amendment No. 8 requires the Secretary of State to have regard in particular to the desirability of adapting to and mitigating climate change. Making it a statutory requirement to have regard to something that is desirable is a recognised concept in planning, and it is an approach that has been the subject of several cases. It clarifiesI hope that this will give my hon. Friends some reassurancethat requiring decision makers to have particular regard to the desirability of an objective works as a way of putting something first and foremost in the decision maker's mind while not preventing them from considering other important matters. Where a desirable objective is met by a particular proposal, that must be a major point in its favour, but it does not necessarily rule out having regard to other factors.
	We now have in the Bill a clear three-stage process. First, Ministers must, as part of drawing up the national policy statements with the objective of contributing to the achievement of sustainable development, have particular regard to the desirability of mitigating and adapting to climate change. That is a strengthening of the Bill since this House last debated it. Secondly, Ministers will thoroughly assess what the impact of the policy is on carbon emissions and other factors affecting climate change and, where necessary, adjust the policy in light of this. Thirdly, Ministers must report on what they have done, and why, in the context of wider climate change policy, including the Climate Change Bill.
	My concerns about my hon. Friends' proposition are twofold. First, particularly as we strengthen the Bill in the ways that I have described, their amendment could in practice elevate climate change and design considerations over all other considerations of sustainable development and in doing so might pre-empt a decision about what in any particular case amounts to sustainable development. Secondly, the introduction of the phrase due regard to the need to raises a problem, because it is untested and it is not exactly clear what it means or what effect it would have in practice. That differs from the approach that we have taken in Lords amendment No. 8.
	Let me turn to the issue of design. In the other place, there was a strong mood and move towards making amendments to ensure that the new regime gave sufficient weight to the need for infrastructure to be well designed. Lords amendment No. 1 therefore requires that every national policy statement will set out criteria for design that must be taken into account in the development to which the policy statement relates. That means that in every national policy statement Ministers should set out clear expectations that infrastructure projects would be well designed and provide a framework against which proposals could be assessed.
	The third area of major concern, as at each stage of the Bill's passage, was the reviewing of national policy statements. Lords amendment No. 3 provides clear criteria to determine when a national policy statement should be reviewed, requiring that the Secretary of State must consider whether there has been a significant change in any circumstances on which the policy is based since the last time it was reviewed. They must also consider whether the circumstances were already anticipated in the previous review and whether, if the change had been anticipated, any of the policy in the statement would be materially different. Lords amendments Nos. 3, 4, 9,10 and 11 provide that when the Secretary of State wishes to conduct a review of a national policy statement it could be a complete or a partial review. They add a measure of flexibility so that where appropriate the Secretary of State will need only to consider whether circumstances have changed significantly in respect of the part that is to be reviewed rather than for the policy statement as a whole.
	Let me turn to statements of policy that pre-date the commencement of these provisions. This aspect is of particular concern to my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell). Lords amendments Nos. 12, 15, 16 and 17 amend clause 12 to provide that where the Secretary of State wishes to use existing statements of policy or work that was done for the purposed of existing statements of policy, the standards of the Bill will still apply.

John McDonnell: I apologise for the fact that in four minutes' time I am meant to be chairing a committee, so I will have to leave shortly. I just wanted explicitly to get on the record what the meaning of the clause, as amended, now is. I assume that it means that existing policy statements, for example the aviation White Paper, would not stand up as a national policy statement for use by the new planning commission because it has not gone through the procedures set out in the Bill for a national policy statement, which means exhaustive consultation as well as parliamentary approval, and that on that basis an area such as aviation would require a new national policy statement before a major application was considered by the new planning commission.

John Healey: I am not sure whether that is a threat or a promise from my hon. Friend, but if he does return we look forward to seeing him.
	On guidance, the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) has raised several concerns about amendments Nos. 53, 54 and 56. I look forward to hearing what she says about that, but I do not understand the reason for the Opposition's concern. Essentially, taken together the Lords amendments are part of strengthening the system in a way that allows the IPC and the Secretary of State not only, as they did before, to issue guidance at specific points in the system but to issue guidance covering any aspect of the pre-application requirements. They also strengthen the requirements for any promoter to have regard to that guidance.
	Finally, I come to amendment No. 65, which some of my hon. Friends are concerned about. I understand the intentions behind the amendments that they have tabled, which is to ensure that interested parties have access to advice and assistance where appropriate, but I am not sure that the amendment they propose is necessary or the best way to achieve that aim. The provision of legal advice and assistance under Lords amendment No. 65 is for the examining authority, which would include carrying out on behalf of the examining authorityin other words, the IPCoral questioning of any person making representations at a hearing. That latter potential function raises serious questions about whether that source of legal advice is appropriate as a source of legal advice and assistance to an interested party at a hearing.
	Secondly, clause 49 already ensures that the commission can provide advice to interested parties about the application process or on how to make representations. If the concern of my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey is that interested parties and local groups might be priced out of being able to secure representation for themselves, he will be aware of our announcements to increase substantially this year, and in following years, provision for the planning aid system. That is designed exactly to provide advice to community groups and to ensure that individuals who might not otherwise get it can be represented.

David Drew: I recognise and welcome the additional moneys that will be made available through planning aid, but just so that I can be clear, will the Minister tell me whether planning aid can represent third parties at an examinationthe process by which the public can express their opinions? May I have it on the record that planning aid can do that and that it does not stop before we get to a formal examination?

John Healey: The purpose of planning aid, as my hon. Friend knows, is to provide assistance to community groups so that they can develop their understanding of the planning system, allowing them to communicate and express their views or concerns better. It is also there to help individuals who, without assistance, would be excluded from the planning process. It is not necessarily there to fund legal advice and representation.
	Several other significant areas have been previously covered in debate. First, we have something that was urged upon us, and was described as a safety valve for IPC decisions. This area, and a couple of others, relates to the final stage of the new process, which is the consideration of applications. One of the main concerns was that the Bill did not provide for a safety valve if the system was not working. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made a commitment on Report, in response to concerns expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts), that we would carry out a review of how the IPC was working two years after its establishment. We agreed to table amendments to the Bill in the other place allowing the grounds on which Ministers can intervene in applications made to the IPC, and take decisions, to be extended if the review reveals problems. Lords amendments Nos. 76, 77 and 174 meet that commitment.
	The second concern about the final stage of the new process relates to opportunities for the public to participate. While the Bill enhances the right for the public to have a greater say at all three stages in the process rather than one, some have questioned the way in which it provides for the IPC to probe, test and assess evidence through direct questions rather than cross-examination. Our amendments strengthened the process and reassured people, making it clear to them that cross-examination was not ruled out in the new regime and that it would be allowed where the commission considers it necessary.
	I hope that it has been useful to touch on the main points where there has been substantive strengthening of the Bill during its passage in the other place.

Clive Betts: May I ask my right hon. Friend to reflect on one area that he has not mentioned? The Government have clearly given further scope to what should be a nationally significant infrastructure project. We discussed the matter in Committee, and we were concerned that the Department for Transport was extending the number of projects that would end up with the commission because any trunk road, or an alteration to one, would be caught. At the time, I thought that the Government would reflect on the matter and get back to us. The Local Government Association is concerned that fairly small alterations would be caught in the net even if they do not have any national significance.

Jacqui Lait: This enormous group of amendments covers a wide number of subjects, most of which we have discussed exhaustively in this House. Their lordships have also discussed them exhaustively, and the cumulative effect is that the Government have listened. However, some fundamental issues have not been addressed, and they are the basis of our objections to much of the Bill.
	I begin, however, by congratulating the Government on taking into account concerns about climate change and design. That represents a great step forward from the original Bill, which talked about sustainable development. However, on close reading of the Lords amendment, one is slightly suspicious that it could turn into a box-ticking amendment. We are attracted to amendment (a) tabled by the hon. Members for Pudsey (Mr. Truswell) and for Stroud (Mr. Drew) because it would toughen up the terms of Lords amendment No. 8 and ensure, one hopes, that it is not a box-ticking exercise. We have had enough of such box ticking in the past 10 years, and we now hope to get some action.
	I know that a lot of people want to speak, but may I welcome briefly the Minister's reassurances to the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) on the old policies? Aviation was the classic example that we all cited while trying to get the Minister to understand that the European directives on strategic environmental assessment had to be incorporated in legislation, and that the existing references to aviation in the Bill were not up to that standard.
	Lords amendment No. 7 is at the core of our objection to the system that the Government are setting up. At the risk of repeating myself for the nth time, we believe that national policy statements that do not have Parliament's approval through a substantive vote will not speed up the delivery of infrastructure projects, which we all agree are needed. Recent warnings were issued about possible shortfalls in the electricity supply this winter, let alone in 2015. I believe that the first new power stations could be on stream in 2020, so we have a genuine problem with just energy, let alone with the other infrastructure that needs updating. There is therefore no argument about the need for the national policy statementsthe argument is about securing a democratic lock on those policy statements, through a substantive vote in Parliament.
	I may be interpreting the Lords amendment incorrectly and I am happy to be told that I am wrong. However, under clause 9(4)(a),
	either House of Parliament makes a resolution with regard to the proposal.
	That implies a vote. Subsection 4(b) provides that
	a committee of the House of Commons makes recommendations with regard to the proposal.
	We believe that either House of Parliament should make those recommendations, and we therefore agree with Lords amendment No. 7. Without a substantive vote in Parliament, the national policy statements will be vulnerable to challenges in the courts, which means that, as soon as they go to court, delay is built into the process. That would have the same impact on planning applications as what happened to the lengthy applications for terminal 5, Sizewell and all the examples that we have cited so often.
	We recognise and accept that Ministers make decisions on the matter; we are discussing a ministerial recommendation to Parliament. If a Government have a majority, a substantive vote in Parliament should be deliverable. There will be inevitable controversy about national policy statements, but a vote should be deliverable. The statement would therefore go through the same process as any Bill that becomes an Act. Once the statement receives a substantive vote in Parliament, the Government's basic argument for the Infrastructure Planning Commission falls because the national policy statement becomes a parliamentary statement, with Parliament's approval, and the Secretary of State or a Minister can easily make a decision about the detailed planning application at the final stage, thereby providing another democratic lock on the planning system, which the IPC does not deliver.
	I want to put it on record again that, should the IPC be set up, we would look to end its existence as fast as possible because we believe that the British people expect democratically accountable Ministers, who are elected by them, not an unaccountable quango, to be responsible for such decisions. If today's announcement is to mean anything, many of those quangos should be abolished.

Jacqui Lait: I am saying that I am sure that their lordships' House would be sufficiently responsible to understand the Government's will, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman recognises that.
	The amendments clearly show our objections in principle to the measure. I do not want to take up too much more time because we are running short of it and several other hon. Members wish to comment.
	We are pleased that the Government have acceded to our request about reviewing statements. The Minister asked me why I was unhappy about amendments Nos. 53 to 56. The original Bill mentioned community involvement, but the amendments delete that reference. If one factor is key to where our planning system currently goes wrong, it is that the community does not feel involved. The phrase community involvement is essentially replaced by, There will be guidance. The guidance may well include community involvement, but it is not as explicit as it was in the original measure. If the Minister cares to reassure me, even briefly, I will be happy.
	We have argued about the right to be heard throughout the Bill's passage. We believe that it is still not strong enough. We welcome the legal advice to the commission to which the Government have agreed, but we would like it to be strengthened so that the right to be heard is guaranteed. I was interested in the answer that the hon. Member for Stroud received about Planning Aid because that was my interpretationand, indeed, Planning Aid's interpretationof what it can do. A difficulty remains with people's ability to get legal representation.
	I was interested in the Minister's comments on amendment No. 76, which deals with the Secretary of State's ability to call applications in. The Minister said that it covered only the review of the IPC. Again, I am prepared to be correctedI am not a lawyerbut the amendment states:
	The Secretary of State may by order specify other circumstances in which section 108 is to apply in relation to an application for an order granting development consent.
	That suggests that the Secretary of State can call anything in. If that is the case, why establish an IPC? The power is too wide. I cannot believe that the drafting is so loose that my interpretation is correct, but I should be grateful for the Minister's clarification so that we all know where we stand.
	With apologies for taking so long, I commend our amendments to the Lords amendments.

Paul Truswell: I rise to speak to amendment (a) to Lords amendment No. 8, which stands in my name and that of various hon. Members across the House. One of the reasons why my Back-Bench colleagues and I tabled the amendment was to give my right hon. Friend the Minister the opportunity to join the pantheon of our Front-Bench heroes, to which many of his colleagues have recently been elevated.  [ Laughter. ] No, no, laugh you notthe roll-call is impressive. It includes our right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster, Central (Ms Winterton), who made significant and welcome changes to the Local Transport Bill; and our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change and the Under-Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, our hon. Friend the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock), who accepted amendments to the Climate Change Bill and the Energy Bill. Indeed, I think that our hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South (Alan Simpson) is still recovering from the shock.
	My right hon. Friend the Minister has a reputation for being somewhat austere, which his earlier comments reinforced. He seems to believe that it is his solemn duty to prevent Back Benchers from becoming over-intoxicated by too much of a good thing and that he therefore cannot accede to our amendment (a). However, all the changes to the Bills that I have listed demonstrate a willingness to listen, reflect and then act. All those changes reflect a degree of joined-up thinking in the crusade, as it were, to tackle climate change. The signatories to my amendment (a) believe that it is necessary for the Bill to do exactly the same thing.
	It is particularly vital in the context of the 80 per cent. emissions target that we achieve a radical change in new infrastructure, in order to move to a low-carbon economy. In that context, we welcome certain provisions in the Bill, such as the climate change duty on local and regional plans. However, the Government have placed no duty on the IPC to consider climate change, because they argue that national policy statements will deal with climate issues. However, that argument is compromised by the fact that the IPC can depart from NPSs in defined circumstances.
	Even if we take the argument about national policy statements at face value, however, we still need to place a strong duty on the Secretary of State to consider climate change when drawing up NPSs. However, Lords amendment No. 8 to clause 10, which relates to sustainable development, is so weak as to make little difference to the actions of the Secretary of State when it comes to the crunch. As my right hon. Friend the Minister has said, Lords amendment No. 8 says that
	the Secretary of State must (in particular) have regard to the desirability of...mitigating, and adapting to, climate change.
	Despite my right hon. Friend's protestations, that feels very weak indeed. Desirability smacks of the language of aspirationmerely an objective to have in mind, but not necessarily to be achieved. The obligation on the Secretary of State is couched in language that would make it difficult for a court or anyone else to put a strong construction on the provisions.
	Even if that were not the case, there is an inherent problem with almost any conceivable clause relating to sustainable development, precisely because the language of sustainable development is imprecise. The phrase is not defined in the Billas far as I am aware, it is not defined in any legislationand even non-statutory definitions are couched in open and vague terms. Amendment (a) to Lords amendment No. 8 seeks to replace the word desirability with a stronger construction, which places a duty on the Secretary of State to have
	due regard to the need to...mitigate and adapt to climate change.
	I should add at this juncture that we took the liberty of lifting those words from other Government legislation, so one would hope that that legislation was subject to the sort of scrutiny that

Julia Goldsworthy: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman could enlighten us as to which legislation he lifted that wording, so that the Minister can go away and double-check that the other legislation is untested.

Paul Truswell: That is like the Schleswig-Holstein question. I have forgotten the answer, but I assure the hon. Lady that the wording was indeed lifted and that I will give her that information in due course.
	The formulation that we propose strengthens the weak notion of desirability, replacing it with need or necessity. That would elevate climate change to an unavoidable consideration, even though it would be sufficiently flexible to leave room for argument. Lord Hunt suggested in the other place that the Climate Change Bill and particularly the 80 per cent. emissions target would deal with all those issues. He also asserted, if my reading of his words is right, that the Government could not be constrained by a duty to mitigate climate change, because that implied that all national policy statements would achieve that goal, when it was clear that they would not.
	However, signing up to an 80 per cent. emissions target has no direct impact on national policy statements, unless we create a direct link between the Climate Change Bill and the Planning Bill. For the reasons that I have just given, I submit that that link is weak to say the least. The Climate Change Bill makes no reference to the Planning Bill; indeed, it appears that we are being asked to take that relationship almost on trust. The reality is that achieving an 80 per cent. emissions target will require radical new signals to industry. Much of that will have a positive economic impact, particularly in the field of renewable energy and other technologies, through research, design and manufacturing.
	However, Lord Hunt seems to have suggested that a strong climate change duty might compromise energy policy and that climate change has to be balanced by other priorities. That simply misunderstands both the opportunity of a low-carbon economy and the scale of the threat of climate change. In any eventI would be the first to admit thisour proposed amendment is not a straitjacket; it is a proposed subsection to an already quite weak clause setting out a sustainable development duty. In that context, our slightly more directive proposed subsection leaves, for better or worse, a considerable margin for discretion on the part of the Secretary of State. However, we believe that we have nudged that obligation in the right direction.
	We cannot allow the Planning Bill to act as a massive bypass around the Climate Change Bill or climate change obligations. For that reason, I wish to push amendment (a) to the vote at the appropriate time.

Julia Goldsworthy: To follow what the hon. Member for Pudsey (Mr. Truswell) has said, Lords amendments Nos. 2 and 8 concede an important principle, concession on which we struggled to get in this place and had to go to the other end of the Palace for the Government finally to concede.
	However, there is still value in pressing for that extra step forward. I, too, was disappointed by just how qualified is the phrase
	have regard to the desirability of.
	As the hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) said, that smacks of a box-ticking exercise just to prove that regard has been given, rather than an effort to make a material impact on any decisions made. I urge the Minister to think again if he wants to send a clear signal, because amendment (a) would make it clear that the duty was categorical and not qualified.
	There is also an important point about the need for good-quality design as well as environmental sustainability. Amendment No. 1 builds on that important principle in the Bill. On the environmental theme, it is good that under amendment No. 102 regional development agencies would have such an obligation.
	The review of national policy statements is another significant area covered by this group of amendments. We welcome amendments Nos. 3, 9, 10 and 11, which set out more clearly the circumstances in which the statements can be reviewed. The Liberal Democrats hope for a rigorous scrutiny process for the statements involving both Houses of Parliament. Although the amendments do not build in the level of scrutiny that we think desirable, it will none the less be important that work that has been done is not undermined by an errant Secretary of State reviewing and changing the statements at will. It must be welcome that there will have to be a significant change in circumstances, which was not anticipated at the time of the initial statement, for those changes to take place.
	The amendment, along with amendments No. 4 and Nos. 70 to 72, allows for part of a statement to be reviewed, so it precludes the baby from being thrown out with the bathwater. If a review is needed, only parts of the statement for which the circumstances have manifestly changed should be reviewed. We welcome also amendments Nos. 20 to 24, which make similar changes to the provisions relating to any legal challenges that may be brought against the NPS. In a similar vein, amendment No. 7 would give the House of Lords the right to report on statements in its Select Committees, and to expect a response. That is important, right and proper, but I would have preferred a greater role for both Houses, with voting on the statements themselves.
	Amendments Nos. 12 to 19 on retrospection are welcome. They respond to concerns that were raised in another place, not least by our former colleague from North Cornwall, Lord Tyler, that clause 12 could introduce elements of retrospective legislation by allowing previous Government statements of policy to become designated national policy statements without proper scrutiny. The air transport White Paper was of particular concern in that regard. We are particularly pleased that clause 12(4) is to be excised from the Bill to ensure that the Parliamentary requirements in clause 9 will have to be met afresh when an old policy statement is to be designated as an NPS.
	We also welcome amendment No. 63, which removes the word exceptionally from the provision on people being given oral hearings. I was disappointed by the Minister's reluctance to give local people their say, but it is good that there has been some movement. However, amendments (a) to (c) to amendment No. 65 would strengthen the measure further, and it is absolutely right that the same rights should be extended to people who are cross-examined as to those making representations to the commission.
	I pay tribute to my colleague Baroness Hamwee, who worked hard with the Minister in the Lords to have amendments Nos. 68 and 69 added to the Bill. We consider that to be a quiet, but significant, Liberal Democrat achievement. It is vital that local planning authorities' policies are considered along with national policy statements when the commission takes decisions. Amendment No. 69 ensures that the panel or council that takes the decision on an application may have regard to conditions for deciding applications that are outwith the NPS. That is certainly welcome.
	I welcome also the Minister's clarification of amendments Nos. 76 to 78, because it was not clear to me from reading them that they were the Government's way of saying that the IPC's functions will be reviewed in two years' time. I am glad that that safety valve is there, but that could be made more explicit, as that seems a roundabout way of doing things. Some important issues have been raised, but I shall conclude now, as I want to give the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) time to speak to his important amendment.

Jim Devine: I shall speak to amendment No. 215, which deals with section 10 of the Water (Scotland) Act 1980, which hon. Members will know is my bedtime reading. The amendment deals with the responsibility of factoring companies such as Greenbelt.
	In the past 15 to 20 years, there has been a big change in the provision of factoring services in planning applications to local communities. That used to be the responsibility of local councils, which adopted common land and land that was provided for local communities, such as land for swing parks. That service was paid for by council tax, or poll tax under the Conservative Administration. However, that changed about 20 years ago as a result of the explosion in private house building throughout the UK. After that, councils no longer adopted such areas because of the work load involved.
	Since then, there has been a growth of companies such as Greenbelt. During the planning process, we have seen private companies taking over the responsibility from councils; we have seen lawyers selling the houses and not advising their constituents or clients that they would have to pick up an additional payment of up to 400 a year; and we have seen sales departments failing to mention the additional burden.
	Until recently, it was possible to vote out these land maintenance companies, but sadly, a company like Greenbelt has changed the rules. Now such companies buy the common land in agreement with the contractor and the house purchasers. In practice that means that, regardless of the service provided by such companies, people cannot sack them. Quite frankly, it is a disgraceful situation. People now find themselves responsible not only for cutting grass and the maintenance of swing parks in their areas, but even for their drainage systems. If the drainage systems go wrong, they have to pick up the tab. A company actually has the right to charge people for that.
	Let me provide an example. There are 11 estates in my constituency and I recall that an abandoned car was found in one of them. The company charged more than 100 houses 2p a quarter: it had to phone the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency and claimed that that cost 2, so it charged each household 2p. As I said, the company charges up to 400 a year and it behaves in a quite unacceptable and bullying manner. Anyone who refuses to pay because of the lack of service very quickly receives a threatening letter from the company, telling them that they will be blacklisted.
	When I first mentioned the company in this place, it wrote to Mr. Speaker and told me that I had no right to raise issues about it in this House and that it had every right to do whatever it wanted because it owned the common land and could charge what it wanted. If it did not provide a service, people still basically had to pay. This is Farepak for home owners, yet this company is operating from the highlands to Birmingham, in Wales and in Northern Ireland. Its behaviour is, quite frankly, outrageous.
	One of my constituents, Paula Hoogerbrugge, set up a website to highlight the deficiencies of and threats and intimidation from the company. It then contacted her employersshe is a senior public relations manager with British Telecomto tell them that she was mixing with extreme left-wingers, when all she was doing was standing up for the residents.

John Robertson: I am sorry to interrupt my hon. Friend's flow, but he is talking about extreme left-wingers and I am wondering who they were. My hon. Friend makes a very good case. Does he agree that companies such as this have to be answerable to somebodyand somebody in this regard should be the elected representative, who can take on constituents' cases. If that is not allowed, we need to look seriously into the law and find out how to bring these people to book.

John Healey: This has been a useful debate, in which we have covered a good deal of ground.
	I echo the tribute paid by the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Julia Goldsworthy) to Lady Hamwee. Let me add that Lord Dixon-Smith and Lady Andrewsrepresenting the Governmenttogether did a very good job in strengthening the Bill, and that, throughout the process, Lady Andrews and I have been supported very well by excellent officials, to whom I also pay tribute.
	The other placeand this, Madam Deputy Speaker, relates to the content of the amendments that I wish the House to accepthas strengthened the Bill in a number of significant areas: the production of national policy statements, parliamentary scrutiny and debate on national policy statements, public consultation
	 It being three hours after the commencement of proceedings , Madam deputy Speaker  put the remaining Questions required to be put at that hour, pursuant to Order [this day].
	 Lords amendment agreed to.
	 Subsequent Lords amendments agreed to [some with Special Entry].

Jack Straw: I beg to move,
	That, in respect of service from 30th November 2007, the salary of the Information Commissioner shall be at a yearly rate of 140,000.
	The position and role of Information Commissioner arise out of two sets of decisions by this House and the other place: the Data Protection Acts of 1984 and 1998 and the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Even when the post was simply concerned with data protection, its duties could involve a conflict with the Government of the day, since the commissioner acts on behalf of the individual to protect personal information held on those individuals, not least by Government. Still more, there is a fundamental conflict of interest in the commissioner's role under the Freedom of Information Act, which this House and the other place passed after much debate in 1999 and 2000and, indeed, strengthened as a result of pressure from both sides of the House and in both Houses, including in respect of making Parliament subject to the Act. That Act involves enforcing the public's right to have access to information against public authorities and the Government where, by definition, the issue will only land on the desk of the Information Commissioner if the public authority has refused to provide the information requested.
	The commissioner, therefore, is a role that requires great independence and integrity, legal facility and an ability to make difficult and balanced judgments. I think I speak for the whole House in expressing my gratitude to Richard Thomas for the way he has conducted himself in this post through the birth pangs of the implementation of the Freedom of Information Act. He showed that he has those qualities of independence, integrity, legal facility and an ability to make difficult and balanced judgments.
	The Government have carefully considered the commissioner's salary in the light of the changes to his role and responsibilities since it was last reviewed in March 2001, shortly after the Freedom of Information Act was formally passed by this House and received Royal Assent, but a full four years before it came into force. The extraordinary prevailing economic conditions quite properly place constraints on public sector pay settlements. However, the Government position is that the particular circumstances of the Information Commissioner's case warrant the increase set out.
	There are three reasons for that. First, the world has changed considerably since the data protection registrar was originally appointed in 1984 to safeguard personal information. There is no need to explain to the House the astonishing revolution in the collection and dissemination of personal information of all kinds as a result of the IT and internet revolution. Secondly, the implementation of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 effectively doubled the range of the commissioner's responsibilities, combining those for data protection and freedom of information in one job description.
	Recently, there have been two further sets of changes, both of which add to the commissioner's responsibilities. First, as all Members are aware, there has been great public and parliamentary concern about data security within both the public and private sectors. This has led to a great deal more work for the Information Commissioner and, so far as Government are concerned, it has led to us proposing to the commissioner which he has acceded tospot checks of Government Departments and the production by him of an annual surveillance report.
	Secondly, and more fundamentally, on 25 October 2007 my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced that he had asked Professor Mark Walport, director of the Wellcome Trust, and Mr. Thomas, the Information Commissioner, to undertake a major review of data sharing in the public and private sectors. The report of the review was published on 11 July 2008 and, in a written ministerial statement today, I have announced the Government's response to it. The consequence is that the commissioner will be taking on further responsibilities, including greater inspection powers to ensure data protection compliance, powers to demand information necessary to assess compliance, a statutory duty to publish a data sharing code of practice, and a new tiered notification fee with an extra penalty for false registration. Those changes will improve the transparency and accountability of organisations dealing with personal information, and that is important if we are to regain public confidence in the handling and sharing of that personal information. The significant expansion of the commissioner's responsibilities has been matched by an increase in the importance and status of his post.

Nick Herbert: I suspect that the Secretary of State for Justice might agree that the timing of this proposal is unfortunate. On a day when the Government have been forced to announce significant future tax rises for working families, the House is considering a significant salary increase for a senior public servant, amounting to a 40 per cent. increase in salary, from 100,000 a year to 140,000. Of course, that will be backdated to last November, which means that for this year we are talking about an 80 per cent. increase. We must therefore consider this motion carefully, especially in view of how the public may regard it.
	I suppose that Mr. Thomas will at least be glad that he has escaped the new top rate of income tax band that the Government have announced today. It is true that the additional sums of public money that will have to be found to fund his salary will be a drop in the ocean compared with the 1 trillion of national debt that this country now faces.
	I sympathise with the Secretary of State in that we are having to decide a salary increase for a serving official, as opposed to deciding whether an increase for a new occupant of the post, as yet unnamed, would be merited. Nevertheless, that is made easier for us by the fact that the official concerned is of clear stature, and has spoken out with authority and independence on matters of data protection. He can command the confidence of the whole House.
	It would have been more helpful to the House if we had had some information about the justification for the increases in advance, although I accept that the Secretary of State has raised the issue with some of us beforehand. His comments about the proposed increase were fair. First, the position is increasingly important, as are the issues involved. We need to ensure that someone who is exceptionally able, and has sound judgment and experience, holds the position of Information Commissioner. As the Secretary of State pointed out, the office holder now also has to be comfortable in the public eye.
	Mr. Thomas has certainly demonstrated the independence that the House requires. Only today he publicly confirmed that, despite the Secretary of State for Children and Families stating that he had contacted the Information Commissioner's office about releasing certain sensitive matters

Bob Spink: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the powers that be have just reduced the proposal to pay the chairman of the Electoral Commission 150,000 a year to only 100,000 a year? Does not that give a lead as to what salary should be set in this case? It should not be 140,000 a year but nearer 100,000.

Nick Herbert: I do not think that the two situations relate. The chairman of the Electoral Commission will now be working for a different periodfor more days in the week, I think, than the current chairman. It is not possible to make the easy read-across that the hon. Gentleman suggests.
	I was making the point that given the Information Commissioner's work load and his seniority, he is paid rather less than a number of other senior public officials. We know that 800 local government officials now earn more than 100,000 a yearan increase of 27 per cent. on the previous year. Some 132 council managers are paid more than the annual salary of a Cabinet Minister. It is also true that the Information Commissioner has been in the same salary bracket since 2005-06. I do not think that it is sensible to fix a senior public servant's salary in such a way and to have a particularly large rise to compensate for that fact, rather than making arrangements whereby his salary would increase sensibly in line with other salaries in the public sector year on year.
	Finally, it is clear that the Information Commissioner's responsibilities are growing. Today's announcement of additional powers for the Information Commissioner is largely welcome. There are concerns about the proposals for data sharing, which we will no doubt debate on a different day, but they underline the fact that the commissioner, who is responsible for a growing annual budgetit is now 16 million a yearand for 260 staff, will have to deal with those thorny issues. He will face continuing challenges. No doubt he will have more cases of Government data losses with which to contend over the course of the next few months, if the last few are anything to go by. He will have to deal with ensuring data protection in the private sector, too, and with the sensitive matter of data protection issues relating to Members of this House. We hope that he will maintain his firm resistance to the planned communications database.
	The Opposition's conclusion is that data issues are no longer peripheral; they are central to public concerns about personal privacy and to good government. Therefore, the Information Commissioner must be rewarded appropriately. We need to ensure that the post has an occupant of stature, quality and integrity. It is vital that that person has those qualities and can maintain the independence that the office demands.

Simon Hughes: I have generally the same analysis of the position as the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert): it is somewhat ironic that, today of all days, we are debating this apparently very significant increase in salary. My initial instinct was to be concerned about the increase. I looked at the figures since we first had an Information Commissionera post first created in 2000-01, when the salary was in the 70,000 to 75,000 range. It was still about the same when Elizabeth France finished and Richard Thomas took over. It has gone up gradually. Until today, it has been just about 100,000.
	The proposal is that it should go up by 40,000, as the Secretary of State for Justice says. I am persuaded, having looked at the evidence and compared similar jobs in the public service, that that is the right remuneration. I understand that the increase is justified by two arguments, the first of which is that the Information Commissioner has had a huge additional workload. The right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz), who is Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, has just referred to one additional piece of work. The Secretary of State referred to the fact that the Prime Minister asked the commissioner to co-author another investigatory report. The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, the right hon. Member for North Swindon (Mr. Wills), has today given a written answer that deals with further work in the pipeline, so I am persuaded that plenty of extra work has come and plenty of additional work will be done.

Simon Hughes: There is a serious point: we do not look at these salaries in the round. The proposal is for one salary for one person for one post; some salaries either come to the whole House or go to a Committee upstairs, and we should look at them comparatively. I take that point. There is an argument that Ministers, who are politicians, might for all sorts of reasons be paid relatively much less than people who are not, but we certainly ought to have the debate.
	I also looked at some of the comparisons, as did the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs. The Library gave me the figures. The chair of the Judicial Appointments Commission gets paid 92,000 for a three-day week. The chair of the Office for Legal Complaints gets 70,000 for 80 days a year. The Children's Commissioner gets 175,000 a yearconsiderably more than the Information Commissioner's salary will be after today.
	The other argument in favour is that I understand that Richard Thomas is due to retire next year and therefore this will be the salary advertised for his successor, and a good range of applicants is needed for the job.
	However, I have not heard the Secretary of State for Justice deal with the one thing that is an oddity about the motion. The salary increase will be backdated to the end of November last year, and that seems a very odd thing for us to do. We should determine the salary either in advance or when it comes up for change. I should be grateful for an explanation of why, all but 12 months later, we will backdate it all that way. That seems to be less justifiable.
	I join the absolute, clear support for Mr. Richard Thomas as Information Commissioner given by the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs and on behalf of the Government. Mr. Thomas has done an unarguably good, competent and robust job. The reason that I am happy to speak in support of the commissioner being allowed to do his job better, if that is the outcomeand I have a request for one bit of his work to be improved if he is going to get all this extra moneyis that he has done some good things in his term of office. He was clear that there should be criminal sanctions, including jail, for people who breach data privacy laws. As one of the people in the House who was affected by that, I was glad that he was robust, because one case ended up with some people being sent to prison. We need clear sanctions for people who break the law for gain and sell data that they are not authorised to have in the first place.

Simon Hughes: I am grateful to the Chief Whip for that. The sanctions are not just for politicians. They are much more important for non-politiciansmembers of the publicwho cannot defend themselves in places such as this.
	I am pleased that the commissioner was robust in supporting my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) in ensuring that details of the people who came to Downing street to discuss official business were revealed. It is important that that should be in the public domain and not a secret. I am very pleased that the commissioner was robust about the fact that local electoral officers should be banned from selling copies of the electoral register to marketing companies. That is not why people give their electoral information and it should not be used as a surrogate for a commercial operation.
	I am also pleased that the commissioner was very robust this summer about the folly of the Government super-database. In his annual report, he said that that would be
	a step too far for the British way of life.
	The figures are incredible. Given that more than 57 billion text messages are sent in this country every year, the concept of the database is almost impossible to imagine. The commissioner was clear that we should not walk into it blindfold and warned us robustly in July about that. He asked that Parliament scrutinise the Home Secretary's proposals clearly. I am glad that she is withdrawing, as I understand it, from her proposal to bring a Bill before us in the next Session and that she will consult further.
	The one critical thing that I want to raise, which I hope the commissioner's new salary will allow him to do, is the need for him to deal with the backlog of cases much more effectively. Colleagues should be seriously worried about the backlog. In his annual

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Could I once again remind Members that the motion before the House is to discuss the salary of the Information Commissioner?

Richard Shepherd: Thank you. Although the salary of 140,000 does not look great in comparison with those of local authority chief executives, BBC executives and so on, we have to pursue the question raised by the hon. Members for North Southwark and Bermondsey and for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris).
	What has happened? There is a serious problemthe problem of delays. Is that the responsibility of someone whom I have always regarded as a fine public servant with a fine sense of public ethos? The statistics tickled out by the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey are important. They are sourced from the Campaign for Freedom of Information, its remarkable director Maurice Frankel and all those who have supported it; I see supporters of the campaign in the Chamber this evening.
	Although the Information Commissioner's office's published statistics state that more than 50 per cent. of all freedom of information complaints are dealt with within 30 days, that figure technically includes invalid complaints that are closed without investigation. Such complaints might involve a requester who has, for example, complained to the Information Commissioner without first asking the public authority to reconsider its original decisiona requirement under the 2000 Act. Alternatively, the person may have complained about bodies, such as private companies, that are not subject to the 2000 Act at all. Apart from invalid cases, only 13 per cent. of cases received during 2007-08 were closed within a year. The figure is extracted from the 2007-08 annual report of the Information Commissioner; page 21 lays it out clearly.
	A snapshot of the problem can be seen from the brief analysis that the Campaign for Freedom of Information carried out into decision notices published by the Information Commissioner during September 2008. Of those, 20 specifically identified the date on which the requester complained to the Information Commissioner's office. As we have been told, in the longest decision there were 32 months between the date on which the requester complained to the Information Commissioner and the date on which the decision was issued. The next longest took 30 months, the third longest took nearly 27 months and the fourth and fifth longest decisions took 26 months. Only six of the 20 cases were dealt with in less than 12 months.
	The fastest of the investigations published in September took six months, and the next fastest took six months, seven months, eight months and 10 months respectively. The average time taken to investigate the 20 complaints was almost 19 months. The Information Commissioner's office received some additional funding from the Ministry of Justice earlier this year, and at the same time arrangements were made to second central Government staff to the Information Commissioner's office. However, it is not clear whether that will result in a significant reduction in delays.
	In 2007, the Information Commissioner's office's objective was to deal with 80 per cent. of freedom of information complaints within 365 days, indicating that it expected to take more than a year in 20 per cent. of cases. However, according to the Information Commissioner's office's corporate plan for 2008 to 2011, that target has been reduced; the current target is to deal with 70 per cent. of FOI complaints within a year. The new target therefore assumes that 30 per cent. of complaints will now take more than a year.

Richard Shepherd: I have listened to the hon. Gentleman for a long time and watched his technique, and it rolls over this House. However, there is a serious and substantive issue to discuss.
	We understand that the commissioner's office is now fast-tracking some of the cases that it identifies as being of particular significance so that new complaints do not all automatically go to the back of the queue. That is useful development. Nevertheless, the delays are a major concern and a threat to the effective operation of the FOI Act. By the time that the information is disclosed, if that is what the commissioner requires, it may be too late for it to be of use to the requester, who may also have become disillusioned with the Act during the process and reluctant to make further requests. At the same time, some authorities may decide to exploit the long delays, calculating that even a plainly unjustified refusal may go uncorrected for a prolonged period.
	The problem is at least partly attributable to the level of funding provided to the commissioner's office, although efficiency gains may be possible. The whole office has been under-funded, and it has not had the resources honourably intended by the Government. I know that every section of this House cries out for yet more money. We have all heard, even today, about the genuine constraints that exist within expanding, very desirable offices. However, when I look across the west midlands and see what the chief executive of Walsall metropolitan borough council is paid, I think of a very significant public figure, who has been of service to this House and the country, who has met the criteria set by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West, and who is fully justified in receiving 140,000. It is a remarkable comment on where this country has arrived at that BBC executives can earn three or four times what the Prime Minister earns. We now have a system whereby the political people who are held accountable by this House and by an electorate at election time are paid significantly less than people who are doing jobs such as chief executive of a local authority or town clerk and who, when I was a boy, earned something immediately comparable with what a Member of Parliament received, or a little more.
	I believe that Richard Thomas is a significant public servant. He is retiring at the end of next year, having come into office around 2000. He has had a monumental job to do, and he has accomplished much. I would like him to have been able to accomplish much more, as, I am sure, would many Members of Parliament. However, within the constraints in which we have operated, he has been a fine public servant, and I do not begrudge him the amount of money that the Government have sought through an Order of this House.

Bob Spink: I cast no aspersions whatever on the Information Commissioner's performance or integrityI am sure that he is an honourable man who does an excellent job. However, given the economic background at the moment, particularly today, I am surprised by the mood of the House. I know that it is very easy to give away public money, but how much money is being given away as result of this decision?
	I am particularly concerned about the backdating by one year of this pay award to someone who is retiring in a year's time. My constituents will say to me, Is this jobs for the boys?, and Are you rewarding your friends? People will rightly raise those concerns. Over a four-year period, with the one-year backdating, we are talking about 250,000 of additional public money being given for a job that is not, in essence, changing. This public servant may deserve that amount, but many public servants who work diligently in very important jobs would want that sort of pay increase. I wonder how the Government, and particularly the Secretary of State, will respond to teachers, firemen and police officers who are told that they have to live with a low, constrained pay rise next year when their turn comes round. Those people might raise the issue of a 40 per cent. pay rise, backdated one year, for this individual who is already reasonably highly paid compared with many other important public servants.
	We must not set a precedent. I do not want to be churlish or upset the mood of the House, but I am concerned about this matter, and the case of other individuals, such as the chairman of the Electoral Commission, whose proposed salary was reduced from 152,000 to 100,000 following the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor) and myself last week. The House should consider such matters carefully, and I am not sure that we have.

Jack Straw: Yes, I can do that.
	For the benefit of the House, it was proposed that the salary of the chair of the Electoral Commissionand it has been accepted by Jenny Watson, the candidate who was selected by the Speaker's Panelbe reduced from the 150,000 advertised by the House to 100,000. That amount is for a three-day week. On a pro rata basis, she is paid 166,000 for a five-day week, which is more than the salary of the Information Commissioner, notwithstanding the fact that we are talking about an executive position that combines the posts of chairman and chief executive, as it is a corporation sole. The Electoral Commission post is that of chairman only.

Ordered,
	That this House agrees with the recommendation to the Prime Minister that Sir Alan Beith be discharged from the Intelligence and Security Committee and Sir Menzies Campbell be added. [Rosemary McKenna, on behalf of the Committee of Selection.]

Mark Todd: I chose this subject because of Highfields farm in my constituency near Etwall. I have known Roger and Beryl Hosking, who run Highfields farm, virtually since I became a Member. The farm produces eggs from around 20,000 free-range birds. However, Roger and Beryl also use their farm to care for young people who have struggled with orthodox education or who have found it hard to stay on the rails.
	At various times, Roger and Beryl have offered places both to the local education authorityup to 30 young people a weekand to the youth offending service, giving participants a unique setting in which to learn basic work skills, team working, respect for others and, critically, respect for themselves. Some of those who have passed through the farm have returned as workers and no offenders who have been there have reoffended.
	It is a moving experience to visit Highfields. There is a strong faith element to Roger's commitment to his task and a great deal of love for young people towards whom many people are perhaps not so affectionate. What Roger is doingrunning an egg farm, handling delicate objects and teaching youngsters who perhaps do not have the most natural grasp of delicate things to take care, to respect and listen to others and then gradually to build up their self-disciplineis a marvellous thing to see.
	Highfields is admirable, but why should it be of interest to the House? Highfields farm is part of a wider movement, although movement is probably a bit of an overstatement. For a start, many people do not recognise the term care farm and would not say that they were involved in one. However, care farms are extraordinarily diverse and there is no common model. I will touch on some of the implications of that later in my speech.
	I want to draw on the research conducted by the university of Essex, funded by Natural England and completed at the start of this year. Around 80 farms in the UK were identified in that study as being run at least in part for social purposes, and 19 of them are city farms, which tend to be fairly small scale. The rest are either independently owned, such as Highfields, or are charities. Care farms vary hugely in scale and type, from smallholdings to quite large ventures, and run across the full range of agricultural activity. As I have mentioned, Highfields is an egg farm, but all varieties of farming activity are to be found in the endeavour.
	Most care farms offer basic skills development aimed at a mix of client groups. Around half offer places to troubled young people who might have had problems with the law, another halfthese categories overlap, because places are offered to various groupsoffer places to those with mental health problems and more than 80 per cent. cater at one stage or another for those with learning difficulties.
	Referrals come from a wide variety of sources, including Connexions, youth offending teams, local education authoritiesmainly Derby city council in Roger and Beryl's caseand pupil referral units, to which children who have for various reasons been removed from mainstream education have gone. All those sources have seen a care farm as an appropriate alternative setting.
	The university of Essex study was rather good at identifying some of the measurable changes within at least a subset of those using care farms. The main outcomes were greater self-esteem, stronger social skills for younger people and the formation of a work habit, as many of them had not been used to turning up regularly and working through a day. Another outcome was an increased trust of other young people and adults. Analysis of the clients of seven care farms in the Essex study showed dramatic improvements in self-esteem and vigour, because those outdoor activities involve young people taking part in physical activity. There were also reductions in anger, confusion and frustration. The academics who completed the study conceded that they would need a larger base to establish a proper scientific base, but the study and the anecdotal evidence that I have gained from my visits to Highfields persuaded me that such care in a farm setting can offer tremendous gains to particular young people.
	Theas yet smallUK experience can be compared with far larger initiatives in continental Europe. There are more than 800 care farms in the Netherlands, 500 in Norway and 350 in Italy. In the Netherlands, the sector has a formal support structure, with a clear integration of farm-based care with other state and voluntary provision. In 2005, care farms in the Netherlands had 10,000 clients. Those visits were driven partly by the provision of personal care budgets that allow clients to choose a farm setting for their care. In Norway, an inter-departmental committee covering the various Ministries involved co-ordinating the work of the wide variety of Government agencies that use care farming.
	In comparison, there has been accidental growth of the sector in the UK, which has been driven by the strong individual motivations of particular farm owners. They believe, either for social or religious reasons, as in the case at Highfields, that they owe something to a group of young people, and that a farm setting can deliver a benefit to them better than anywhere else. Although there is a generalised awareness that the use of open spaces is therapeutic both mentally and physically, there has been no link to a formal strategy. Neither has there been any recognition of the value of care farming within a wider agricultural diversification agenda.
	So what do we need? First, as is clear from the Essex study, we need more research on the value and scale of care farming in the UK. Secondly, we need explicit recognition of care farming options in agricultural policy, including access to relevant funding for classrooms and adaptations, for example. I know from my dealings with Highfields that it was immensely challenging to raise resources to provide for education and social meeting areas at the farm and, critically, for adapting the sheds into an appropriate model for a modern egg farm. I would encourage my right hon. Friend the Minister to read that section of the Essex university report about Highfields farm and the immense strain that was placed on the owners when buildings from a certain period were condemned and they thought that what they had invested their lives in would be taken away. They got through that, but not through the aid of any Government agency; they got through it by their individual efforts at fundraising and support.
	We need a clearer identification of this as an area of diversification where support can be provided. Elsewhere in South Derbyshire additional funding has been provided for turning a collection of barns into small business units for industrial purposes, for example. That is very welcome; I am delighted to see resources used in that way, but I believe that it is equally appropriate to support initiatives that will provide an educational or care focus in a rural environment.
	The third aspect of what I wish for is collaboration between the Government Departments focused on youth policy to define how care farming can be facilitated as a youth resource. I managed to get a Home Office Minister to visit Highfields farm some time ago and my right hon. Friend's predecessor visited the farm fairly recently. If she had had a chance to have a word with my noble Friend Lord Rooker, she would have had some insight into what he thought of the place.
	I have spotted that such facilities fall into the classic difficulty in British policy terms of sliding between various silos. It is a farm, so it is the responsibility in some sense of my right hon. Friend who is answering this debate, but the services provided on the farm are educational, which means that they are the responsibility of another Government Department. In respect of caring for young people who have been offenders, it is the responsibility of yet a third Department. One could easily find arguments for saying that other agencies that are the responsibility of other Government Departments might also be engaged in care farms.
	What is required is a focus on those who are beneficiaries of care farms rather than on the individual streams of Government thinking that might touch on various parts of the farm. The critical group of beneficiaries are young people who are disadvantaged in various ways and who have faced adversity; some of that may have been self-imposed but, in other cases, it may have been imposed upon them. If we can focus on that group and put in place the mechanisms necessary to support them through the valuable experience they will get from a care-farming provision, that is my goal. Such collaboration is necessary.
	Fourthly, there is a need for assistance with regulatory burdens. I mentioned the difficulties Highfields had experienced in raising funds to deal with the sheds that were condemned in the early part of this decade. When I saw Roger on Friday, he told me that he had needed assistance to fill in some forms to apply for assistance on one of the educational activities that he was involved in. The difficulty is that the focus of many of these enterprises is not bureaucracy or compliance with Government expectations. Instead, we are often dealing with small enterprises whose people are motivated by very different things. It is helpful to have people who are willing to assist with getting through some of the hurdles of compliance that Governments, perfectly understandably, place in their way. A recognition of the wider therapeutic benefits of care farming in dealing with a range of conditions would also be welcome.
	I feel strongly about the need for a rational approach to the risk involved in operating on a farm. Farms can be dangerous places
	 It being Ten o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
	 Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn .[Mr. Watts.]

Mark Todd: I had not realised that it was now 10 pm, Mr. Speaker.
	As I was saying, farms can be dangerous places. We all accept that. There are still too many accidents on farms. However, I think that depriving young people of the experience of practical work in a rural environment is an over-reaction. It would be helpful if some of the agencies involved were helped to understand the opportunities that are available, as well as the limited risks that exist in a properly supervised environment.
	Some useful work has been done by the Mercia constabulary and probation service, showing some of the cost savings that care farms can make by reducing reoffending. As I said at the outset, none of the young offenders placed at Highfields farm have reoffended. Although I accept that that cannot be the outcome in 100 per cent. of cases, surely it will be marvellous if the same dramatic reduction in criminal activity among a group of young people can be replicated. We need to do further research and carry out tests. I suspect that some young people respond better than others to such opportunities, but research on how the model works for a mixed group of young people will require additional support.
	Probation and youth offender services need to be encouraged to consider care farming contractors. We have recently been rethinking the legislative arrangements for contracting to facilitate the use of private and voluntary sector contractors in lieu of direct provision by the state, and care farms provide exactly that model. At the time of the passage of that legislation, I raised the possible implications for smaller suppliers such as Highfields. Regrettably, that farm seems recently to have vanished from the horizon of the relevant probation and youth offender services, which appear not to have been able to find the capacity to continue contracts that have proved fairly successful in the past. That may be related to other factors, but it worried me that the changing framework for contracting for those who provide such services might militate against the smaller specialist provider, and that is what appears to have happened.
	Finally, we need to devise funding models that are suitable for a diverse range of providers who currently struggle individually to locate both clients and capital resources for periodic improvements, but that can be combined with the commercial activity involved in running a farm. Again, Highfields is a good example. I have suggested to Roger on a number of occasions that it should be run as a charity, but he says that the difficulty is that it is a commercial egg farm. It sells eggs, he says. We want to maintain it as a business. The difficulty lies in the lack of access to funding streams as a consequence of that strong element of commercial activity. I would defend it, however. The practical working environment of a businessas opposed to an entirely supported entity such as a charity whose only purpose is to care for young people in the countrysideis valuable in itself. It gets across the message that this is working to produce something that will be sold and that people will earn a living from. That is a valuable part of the experience these young people will have. Assistance in understanding the complexity of running a care farm that has continuing economic activity within it, which must be commercial, is an important requirement.
	I hope that my right hon. Friend will reflect on what I have said and the opportunities that exist not only for farmers looking for alternative sources of income and alternative activities in the countrysidealthough care farming does offer an approach to farm diversificationbut, crucially, for young people. When there is a need to care for a young person better, give them a better future and correct some of the things that have gone wrong in their lives, the setting of an agricultural environment achieves better outcomes. That has been established by academic research, and it now needs to be entrenched and given greater resource and support by Government agencies. I look forward to hearing my right hon. Friend's response.